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INTERNATIONAL EDVGATION SERIES 



EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

IN THE 

KINDERGARTEN 



BY 



SUSAN E. BLOW 



AUTHOR OP "SYMBOLIC EDUCATION," "MOTTOES AND COMMENTARIES 
OF FROEBEL'S MOTHER PLAY,'' "LETTERS TO A MOTHER," ETC. 



NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1908 



U8rtARYofOON6RES5 
Vwo GODies Heteiyd« 

JUL 25 ISJUd 

k iHiviiiHiii ciitry 
COPY d. 



COPTRIGHT, 190S, BT 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Published July, 1908 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 



Some readers of this book may be surprised to 
see how conflicting world-views masquerade not only 
in popular literature and in semi-philosophical writ- 
ings, but also in methods of instruction in the 
schools, and, above all, even in the programmes of 
the kindergarten ! This certainly ought to encour- 
age us to look again at the claims made for the 
educational creed of Froebel, which lays so much 
emphasis on the child's original self-activity. In 
fact, this book should set in a new light Froebel's 
place as the great educational reformer for the pe- 
riod of infancy. 

While self-activity itself is an inspiration to the 
disciples of Froebel, it is a stone of stumbling to 
many educators who have adopted with enthusiasm 
the doctrine of evolution. They have understood 
evolution as a blind impulse given by nature to de- 
velop or unfold — an impulse given not only to plants 
and animals, but also to chemical elements, planets 
and suns, and even to comets and nebulae. 

It is admitted, however, that the evolution below 
the stage of life consists in fitting inorganic sub- 
stances for the needs of organic life. Arrived at 
life, the development assumes the form of self-activ- 
ity, and students of evolution ought to look at and 



vi EDITOR'S PREFACE 

recognize in all its shapes this new form of exist- 
ence. Mechanic shapes are the effect of external col- 
lisions or relations to outside bodies. But life is 
the manifestation of a power to react on the environ- 
ment and modify it for its own purposes. 

Life can perform by its self-activity two kinds of 
adjustments. It can adjust itself to its environment ; 
it can modify its environment so as to adjust that 
external condition to its own needs and purposes. 

Evolution in nature, in fact, points toward the 
assumption of a transcendental power of self-deter- 
mination on the part of plants, animals, and men, 
in so far as progress or development is due to efforts 
of animals or plants or men to adapt themselves to 
their environment, or, on the other hand, to adapt 
the elements of their environment to their own needs. 

Wherever life exists there is a transcendental power 
of self-determination. Kant used this word tran- 
scendental to describe freedom as something which 
sets aside the links of causation in its environment 
and sets up in their stead its own causal activity. 
The plant overcomes inorganic matter and its caus- 
ality and assimilates or digests it, making it into 
vegetable cells having the same idiosyncrasy as itself 
— the oak, for example, making the soil and nitric 
acid, carbonic acid, and other elements, into the cells 
of oak leaves and oak wood and acorns. The plant 
thus sums itself up at the end of its process by be- 
ginning (in its seeds) a series of new individuals of 
the same species, each one capable of interrupting 
the mechanical chain of causality in the external 



EDITOR'S PREFACE vii 

order of nature, and substituting for it its own 
causality, possessing more or less individuality. 

The animal has much more of this individuality 
than the plant, for it possesses not only assimilation 
(or digestion), but also feeling and locomotion. 

The self-determining power of the animal goes on 
to build for itself organs of tasting, smelling, hearing, 
and seeing. This makes its evolution. 

Even the plant seizes from its environment what is 
suitable and makes it into tissue wherewith to form 
its organs and its structure. The animal increases 
its apparatus for seizing and appropriating its envi- 
ronment, and constructs new organs or instruments 
not only for assimilation or nourishment, but also 
for locomotion and sensation. These are progressive 
forms of self-activity — manifestations of a rudimen- 
tary will-power building for itself a means of oper- 
ating upon the external world. 

Underneath all manifestations of life we perceive 
action according to purpose or design. 

If the living being is conscious of these purposes or 
designs they become motives. 

Motives are higher, and more complete manifesta- 
tions of self-activity — in fact, they indicate the arrival 
at freedom proper. 

The motive contains in it a recognition of an ex- 
ternal environment not in harmony with the self, and 
also a recognition of a possible action of its own 
which may modify that external existence and bring 
it into harmony with the self. For example, I may 
see an apple; as a mere existence it is not, and can- 



VIU EDITOR'S PREFACE 

not as such be, food. I possess appetite, but only by 
the action of devouring the apple may I convert the 
apple into food. The motive is the concept of its use 
to me, forced on the apple — ^the apple being destroyed 
in the realization of my motive. I made the motive 
by thinking away the reality of the apple and sub- 
stituting for it the thought of the reality of my food. 
Then I make this thought-motive a reality by a sec- 
ond act of my will, by eating the apple. There is, 
therefore, a twofold act of the self, first I form a 
motive in my mind and secondly I realize that 
motive. 

Motives therefore unfold and make explicit my 
freedom, and are not, as Victor Cousin taught, the 
mediation which sets aside my freedom. He sup- 
posed that an act could not be perfectly spontaneous 
and free unless it were an act done before the mind 
had time to formulate its motives. By this theory 
he hoped to answer the fatalists who held that the 
will must be necessitated by the strongest motive. 
There can be " no freedom, but only a constraint 
from motives — the strongest of the motives constrains 
the will.'^ But all this mistake arose through in- 
correct analysis — the fatalist supposed that the per- 
ception of the external reality (the apple, for ex- 
ample) was itself a motive, whereas it could not 
become a motive until the mind had combined it 
with another percept, namely, its hungry self; and 
by this combination of its hunger with the object it 
did not as yet think a motive- — it did not complete 
the thought of a motive until it added the idea of 



EDITOR'S PREFACE IX 

the seizure and destruction performed on the apple 
by the act of eating it. Take away the thought of 
the annulment of the apple's reality, and you take 
away the thought of using it as food. 

The motive always has in it the thought of the 
annulment of a reality or at least of some change 
of a real condition. And, whereas the determinist 
supposes himself to have an immediate reality in a 
motive, his motive is only a thought relative to the 
annulment of the objective reality (the apple, e.g.) 
before him. 

On the plane of human life the apparatus for 
knowing nature is very much extended, and so is the 
apparatus for moving and combining objects of na- 
ture and transforming and adapting them for the 
uses of man. But even the animal, even the plant 
has self-activity. The animal has motives also, and 
even if they are not of a high order, they manifest as 
far as they go his ability to annul the chain of 
external causality first in thought and secondly in act. 

There is one great step which differences man from 
the animals; to man objects are not seen as isolated 
particulars, but are seen as individuals of species 
and as existing in a causal relation to other objects 
in the world. 

This gives a greatly enlarged scope for the creation 
of instruments for the use of the will in acting upon 
nature. Man as a language-using animal, sees each 
object as a specimen of a class of objects, and in seeing 
it thus he sees, as it were, a halo of possibility or po- 
tentiality about each object. Each object is as it is, 



X EDITOR'S PREFACE 

but it might have been different in this or that respect 
because of some external cause, or because of some 
defect in the object's reaction if it is a living being. 

Moreover, each object is looked at by the human 
self as possessing the capacity of being so modified 
by the action of man as to take it out of its natural 
functions and impose upon it a function of service 
for man. The water brook may be converted into a 
pond and its force applied through a water wheel 
and other machinery to aid man in the transformation 
bi nature. 

This activity of thought which sees the possible 
in the real is the great self-activity which distin- 
guishes humanity. 

In philosophy, for instance, man can - see these 
potentialities as presuppositions. Through presup- 
positions man can see the evidence of a Divine Being, 
even in brute, inanimate, matter. He can see the nec- 
essary immortality of thinking beings like himself. 

He can by presuppositions perceive the grand pur- 
pose of all nature as an evolution — he can recognize 
time and space as a cradle for the development of 
individualities and their ascent into immortal be- 
ings. 

All philosophy, science, literature, and art, and es- 
pecially religion, become possible to this human being, 
who can discern not only what he is, but read in the 
actual being of his environment all of its potentialities 
—present, papt, and future. ^^, ^ Harris. 

Washington, D. C, June 5, 1908. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



Within the past thirty years all grades of edu- 
cation from the kindergarten to the university have 
been more or less influenced by the scientific doc- 
trine of relativity as the controlling principle of 
the universe; by the working hypothesis of physio- 
logical psychology that " mental action may be uni- 
formly and absolutely a function of brain action/' 
and by the undue ascendancy of industrial aims 
over the mind of the American people. 

The primary object of this book is to trace the 
results of these influences upon the kindergarten. 
The hope with which it has been written is that 
portrayal of their results within one small province 
of education may help to direct attention to the 
disasters they have caused and are causing in all 
provinces of education. 

The plan of the book is a very simple one. Each 
of the above-mentioned modes of thought is con- 
cretely presented in the t}^ical example of a kinder- 
garten programme. Each programme is discussed 
with the purpose of throwing its creative principle 
into clear relief. Finally, some suggestion is given 
of the influence of this principle in other spheres 
of life and thought. 



xii AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

In addition to its general aim this book has a 
secondary and more specific purpose. It endeavors 
to set forth the theories of Froebel with regard to 
the education of little children. 

The educational creed of Froebel contains four 
reciprocally dependent articles. The first is that 
man is a self-creative being; the second, that in vir- 
tue of this fact education shall encourage self- 
expression; the third, that encouragement shall be 
given only to those modes of self-expression which 
are related to the values of human life; the fourth, 
that all great human values are revelations of the 
aboriginal self -determining energy which achieves 
its own ideal form in self-consciousness. This final 
article does not deny the influence of man's biologic 
and historic heredity, nor does it deny the influence 
of either his physical or his social environment. It 
does, however, insist both upon the priority and the 
primacy of self-determination. 

The creators of concentric programmes either re- 
ject or ignore all these articles of the Froebelian 
creed. The creators of free-play programmes accept 
the first and second, but either reject or ignore the 
third and fourth. The creators of industrial pro- 
grammes accept the first three, but deny or ignore 
the fourth, and thereby are betrayed into practical 
methods which violate the articles they theoretically 
affirm. 

It is due to readers of this book that I should 
explain my reason for devoting its final chapter to 
a discussion of different philosophic world-views. 



' AUTHOR'S PREFACE xiii 

The conflicting practice of kindergartners implies 
divergent conceptions of education. These diver- 
gent conceptions of education are not mere eddies 
in the stream of thought, but correspond with dif- 
ferent directions of its main current. In its jubi- 
lant sense of conformity with nature, and in its 
swift surrender to fatal impulse, the free-play kin- 
dergarten repeats in its tiny circle the self-destruc- 
tive sweep of naturalism. In its tendency to con- 
ceive the child as shaped and fashioned by the 
historic process; in its reaction from intellectualism 
to an exaggerated voluntarism, and in its practical 
emphasis upon functional values, the industrial 
kindergarten betrays the influence of pragmatism. 
In its conception of the child, its symbolism and 
its freightage of free activity with ideal values, the 
Froebelian kindergarten reveals a lineage from the 
philosophy of idealism. A study of educational 
issues in the kindergarten which should omit con- 
sideration of these three world- views would there- 
fore dismiss its subject without any final explana- 
tion.^ 

In the discussion of pragmatism I have restricted 
myself to that form of the doctrine which has af- 
fected the practice of the kindergarten. 

In my presentation of the philosophy which un- 
derlies the kindergarten I do not claim to have 
repeated exactly the conscious thought of its founder. 

1 The connection of the concentric programme with Her- 
bart's "World View" is shown in chapter V. Herbart's 
" World View " never obtained general currency. 



xiv AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

Froebel was a religious m3'stic. His power of in- 
tuitive divination far exceeded his power of philo- 
sophic statement. I believe that the philosophy of 
idealism as presented in the final chapter of this 
book is implied in Froebel's mystic conception of 
the dogma of the Trinity and in his own conception 
of man as Gliedganzes. Furthermore, I hold that 
this is the only philosophy which adequately inter- 
prets his educational procedure. 

My grateful acknowledgments are due to Prof. 
Charles Hubbard Judd, of Yale University, for his 
kindness in explaining to me an important question 
of genetic psychology, and to Prof. John Angus 
MacVannel, of Columbia University, for help re- 
ceived from his monograph on " The Educational 
Theories of Herbart and Froebel,^' for his courtesy 
in reading the proof of this book, and for valuable 
advice. 

Susan E. Blow. 

Cazenovia, N. Y., June 13, 1908. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The Concentric Programme 1-33 

The kindergarten embodies great educational ideals 
— Results of an inadequate grasp of these ideals — 
Three departures from the Froebelian ideal — Aim 
of the book, 1. A concentric programme, 2-7. Dis- 
cussion of concentric programme — Four defects in- 
herent in its principle: First, assumed priority of 
conscious thought ; second, imposition of a thoug-ht- 
mass; third, sacrifice of specific values; fourth, sub- 
stitution of arbitrary connections for causal ties, 
8-10. Results of concentric programmes in the 
kindergarten, 10. Pedigree of concentric pro- 
gramme, 1 1-13. Concentric programmes in the school, 
13-19. The principle of concentration^ — Its defect 
the assumption that mutually repellent subjects 
may be fused — Contrast of scientific and humane 
studies — Scientific studies should be so presented as 
to lead to discovery of causes — Humane studies 
should be so presented as to lead to a knowledge of 
human nature — Special sciences and special groups 
of the humane studies demand different methods — • 
Values of mathematics, physics, botany, zoology, 
literature, art, and history — Methods adapted to 
awaken consciousness of these values, 19-29. Prin- 
ciple of concentration rooted in doctrine of apper- 
ception as explained by Herbart — Two defects in this 
explanation: First, primacy of intellect over feeling 
and will; second, doctrine that presentations are the 

XV 



xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

elements of mental life — Educational atomism — Its 
two forms: First, emphasis upon sensations as 
original elements of mind; second, emphasis upon 
associative processes — Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Her- 
bart as atomic educators, 29-32. Froebel discards 
both forms of educational atomism, 33. 



CHAPTER II 
The Froebelian Antithesis or Contrast . . 33-75 

Froebel's vortical education versus the concentric educa- 
tion of some Herbartians — Thought - masses and 
typical facts — Facts as relative and absolute syn- 
theses — Definition of a typical fact — It must suggest 
a creative energy, 33-35. Illustrations of the power 
of typical facts, 35-37. Typical facts appeal to im- 
agination — Through their use Froebel captures the 
realm of phantasy, 37. Contrast between the psy- 
chology of the concentric programme and the psy- 
chology of the kindergarten: the former derives 
interest, desire, volition, from conscious thought; the 
latter begins with interest and desire w^hich express 
and define themselves in deeds, 38. The point of 
departure for kindergarten education, typical acts — 
These typical acts include play with typical objects 
and representation of typical characters, relations, 
and processes, 39. Arguments against kindergarten 
gifts — Discussion of these arguments, 39-42. Scien- 
tific value of play with archetypal forms, that it 
leads from effects to causes, 42, 43. Value of play 
with archetypal forms as related to art : First, leads 
to accurate seizure of concrete forms; second, leads 
to appreciation of rhythm, measure, and proportion, 
43-52. Typical processes — Value of dividing and 
reconstructing wholes: value of sequences; value of 
evolutionary exercises mediating given antitheses, 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xvil 

PAGE 

52-56. Relation of these values to Froebel's world- 
view, 56-59. Froebel's belief that all values are 
indigenous to the mind, 59-61. Kindergarten gifts 
and occupations contrasted with kindergarten games: 
the former relate to arts and sciences ; the latter pre- 
pare for the humanities, 61, 62. What is meant by 
the ideal — A cosmic community as both archetype 
and goal of creation — Relationship of human institu- 
tions to this goal — Educational function of the 
several institutions, 63-66. Typical characters, 66- 
68. Typical relationships, 68, 69. Mistaken criti- 
cisms of the kindergarten, 69, 70. Typical processes, 
70, 71. Value of types as concrete embodiments of 
universal ideals, 72, 73. The concentric programme 
and its Froebelian antithesis or contrast, 73-75. 



CHAPTER III 

The Methodical Treatment of Literature . 76-92 

Insistence upon value of classic stories the meritorious 
deed of Herbartian educators — ^This deed undone by 
using stories as cores of concentration and by sub- 
jecting them to methodical treatment, 76. Meth- 
odical treatment illustrated, 76-80. Criticism of 
methodical treatment: First, it kills interest in story; 
second, neutralizes influence of story; third, distracts 
attention from story; fourth, antagonizes children 
by calling for repetition of story; fifth, introduces 
irrelevant information; sixth, makes false appeal 
to moral sense, 80, 81. Three psychologic fallacies 
involved in the methodical treatment of literature: 
First, children should not define the feelings stirred 
by presentation of typical characters, collisions, and 
catastrophes; second, new facts do not seize upon 
the mind with greater force when they readily fuse 
with familiar ideas; third, children should not be 



XVlll TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

made aware of all that is going on in their minds, 
81-85. The methodical treatment of literature an 
outcome of Herbart's false analysis of mind — The 
soul is not " a simple wherein nothing exists but ideas, 
their relations and interactions" — Mind is an energy 
one and indivisible; feeling, willing, and knowing 
special modifications of this energy, 86. The method- 
ical treatment of stories attacks the spirit of litera- 
ture by interpreting its typical characters and 
situations — Literature knows no moral imperatives 
— Its appeal is not to understanding but to imagina- 
tion, 87. Methodical treatment of literature in the 
kindergarten, 88-90. Summary of criticisms on 
concentric programme and methodical treatment of 
literature, 91, 92. 

CHAPTER IV 
Literature and Life 93-124 

Nursery rhymes portray elementary types of character 
and situation — Illustrations, 93, 94. Value of typical 
characters ; they begin the work of sorting humanity 
into classes, 95. Traditional tales begin the revela- 
tion of ideal humanity — National myths define this 
ideal more clearly, 96. The ideal human being as 
portrayed in Aryan myth has: First, a divine hered- 
ity; second, a double selfhood; third, a besetting sin; 
fourth, he inspires the hatred of lesser men; fifth, 
explores and subdues the world and himself; sixth, 
sacrifices himself for others ; seventh, realizes himself 
through self-renunciation, 96-99. Differences be- 
tween Greek, Roman, and Teutonic myths: Greece 
reveals beautiful individuality; Rome, self -subordi- 
nation; Teutonic myth destructive self-assertion, 
100-1. Connection of Greek myth with Greek 
history — Greece realized the ideal of freedom in the 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xix 

PAGE 

form of beauty — Beauty is " the shining of self- 
activity" — Greece made nature human; made man 
divine; created beautiful bodies through disciplined 
activity; revealed free activity in statues; created 
all forms of literary art ; made language the material 
of literary art; produced standard work of literary 
criticism (Aristotle's Poetics); fought Asia in de- 
fense of ideals of freedom — Defined freedom in her 
philosophy, 101-3. Rome embodied freedom in 
the form of law — Originated the idea of contract — 
The combination of two wills suggests a common will 
— The community which safeguards contract is a 
higher revelation of common will — Recognition of 
transcendental will calls forth purpose and patriot- 
ism — Purpose recognized in nature — All lesser pur- 
poses organized to accomplish the higher purpose 
of the state — "Cosmic patriotism/' 103-5. The 
Teutonic peoples clamor for satisfaction of immediate 
impulse and recognition of their immediate personal- 
ity — ^These are savage and self-destructive demands. 
They assert the form of freedom but deny its sub- 
stance — ^They portend a tragic destiny — This tragic 
destiny is adumbrated in the great Teutonic myth 
all of whose chief personages perish through fatal 
deeds, 105-9. The Hebrew contribution to the 
ideal of freedom — The objective validity of the moral 
as point of departure for the Hebrew religion — The 
inseparable correlate of morality is will — ^Therefore 
if morality has objective validity there is a personal 
God — Righteousness and loving-kindness are neces- 
sary implications of personality — The Hebrews re- 
vealed the true God — ^The nation lived by faith in 
this God — The Covenant of Righteousness, 109-13. 
Retreat of contemporary thought from morality 
to expediency, 113-14. Historic ascent from the 
concept of a Personal God whose necessary attri- 
butes are justice and love to the doctrine of the Trin- 
1 



XX TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ity, 114-15. Initial form of this doctrine, 115-16. 
Double reaction of the Teutonic peoples to the 
Christian ideal as illustrated in the legends of chivalry 
and the legend of Faust, 116-18. Historic resolu- 
tion of the contradiction which rends the soul of ger- 
maine peoples — ^What is claimed for any one man 
must be granted to all men — Gunpowder — Printing — 
Luther — Transfiguration of the Faust myth by 
Goethe — Adequate definition of freedom by Hegel, 
118-19. Germany solves theoretic implications of 
freedom — England and America discover the practical 
instrumentalities by which freedom may be estab- 
lished among men: First, Local self-government; 
second. National government of, by, and for the 
people; third, public schools; fourth, public libraries; 
fifth, steamships, railways, telegraph wires, and news- 
papers, 119-20. Runnymede and Shakespeare, 120- 
21. Goal of history the federated union of the world 
and the cosmopolitan individual — Mutual action and 
reaction of literature and life, 121-23. Summary 
and prophecy — Man creates himself in and through 
communion with men — History and literature reveal 
the stages of his self-realization in ever enlarging 
communities — Both prophesy as their consumma- 
tion the realization of freedom in and through a 
cosmic community, 123-24. 

CHAPTER V 

Herbart and Froebel 125-49 

Discrimination between Herbart and his more radical 
disciples: First, they failed to give sufficient atten- 
tion to his distinction between primordial and de- 
rived presentations; second, they did not sufficiently 
consider his plea that instruction should be divided 
into two main lines, the one for understanding, the 
other for sympathy, 125-28. Herbart recognizes 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxi 

PAGE 

the need of alphabets of sense-perception and per- 
ceives that the most important of these is a mathe- 
matical alphabet — His analysis of geometric forms 
into triangles, 128-29. Herbart's point of depar- 
ture for humane studies — His admirable suggestions 
with regard to stories, 130-31. Defect of Herbart's 
plan an exclusive emphasis upon assimilative activ- 
ity, 131-33. Defects in Herbart's explanation of 
apperception: First, denies the spontaneous activity 
and structural form of mind; second, ignores the in- 
fluence of feeling and volition, 133-34. Herbart's 
pedagogy self-contradictory because it insists upon 
interest as both the result of thought-masses and the 
agency through which they are created, 134. Dis- 
cussion of Herbart's ontology and psychology, 135- 
37. Connection between Herbart's own life and his 
insistence upon assimilative processes — The great 
age in which Herbart lived and his detachment from 
it, 137-39. Froebel's enthusiastic response to the 
spirit of his age — Froebel's two great insights: First, 
the values of human life are concrete expressions of 
the substance of freedom ; second, play is that activ- 
ity of childhood which achieves the form of freedom, 
140. Play and work, 141-142. The kindergarten 
freights the form of play with the values of life, 142- 
44. Froebel's psychology: the self is an aboriginal 
energy whose ideal form is self-consciousness, 145. 
Froebel's recognition of the implications of self-con- 
sciousness, 146. Contribution of Froebel's psychology 
to his pedagogics — His great achievements: First, 
recognition of the priority of action; second, connec- 
tion between plays of childhood and values of life; 
third, accent upon imitative games, tj'pical objects, 
acts, processes, and characters; fourth, use of natural 
analogues; fifth, presentation of counterparts; sixth, 
creation of three types of exercise; seventh, organiza- 
tion of kindergarten instrumentalities, 147-48. 



XXU TABLE OF CONTENTS 
CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

The Free-Play Programme 150-89 

Presentation of free-play ideal — Each child to do what 
he pleases as he pleases, 150-53. Record of two days 
in a free-play kindergarten, 153-56. Contrast be- 
tween free-play and Froebelian ideal — The latter 
grafts upon plays pointing toward human values the 
higher realization of their own ideal, 156, 157. Con- 
centric programme conceives child as a learning being 
— Free-play programme conceives him as a reacting 
organism — Froebelian programme conceives him as 
possessing a generic selfhood, 157, 158. Test experi- 
ments to determine children's reactions to kinder- 
garten instrumentalities — Reasons why these tests 
are misleading: First, jumble of materials predisposes 
to imperative or vacillating choices; second, children 
need initiation in order to choose; third, defects of 
kindergartners create disturbing influences; fourth, 
kindergartners' own judgments of value react upon 
choices of children, 159-63. Thirty-five years of 
experience proves priority of both interest and value 
to belong to building gifts, cutting, drawing, coloring, 
clay work, parquetry and sewing — Justification of 
kindergarten material through experience of ages, 
163. The mediatorial methods of the kindergarten: 
First, transit from imitation toward originality; sec- 
ond, suggested subject; third, free initiative with 
expert reaction; fourth, the simple problem; fifth, 
group work, 164, 165. Two fallacies of the free-play 
kindergarten: First, the conception of the kinder- 
garten as a substitute for childish play in its totality; 
second, conception of the child as only a reacting or- 
ganism — Result of this second fallacy undue emphasis 
upon incitements, 165, 166. Contrast of Froebelian 
and free-play kindergartens — The method of the 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxiii 

PAGE 

former assists children to integrate themselves; that 
of the latter tends toward disintegration by betraying 
children into vacillating or imperative choices, 166- 
68. Collapse of free-play into reflex activity illus- 
trated by plays of physical action — Dogma that play 
should be directed by hereditary impulses — Incen- 
tives to quicken these impulses — Dogma that funda- 
mental muscles precede accessory muscles in the 
order of development — Denial of this dogma — 
Discussion of muscular coordination — Two points 
established: First, fine muscles in full operation very 
early in life; second, development takes place 
through coordination of diffuse movements — Value 
of the kindergarten as a preparation for the arts and 
trades, 168-74. Representative plays — Blindness 
of free-play kindergartners to meaning of imitation: 
First, what a child imitates he tends to become; 
second, what he imitates he will notice; third, what 
he imitates he begins to understand, 174-77. Circle 
games discarded — Free-play programme assumes 
that education should never lead children to do any- 
thing they might not have done of themselves — 
Biologic and social "short cuts" — Education should 
seek these — Froebelian games mediate between the 
traditional games of the nursery and the playground, 
177, 178. Restatement of Froebelian ideal — It 
aims to abet generic modes of self-expression, 178, 
179. The immediate interests of little children not a 
reliable index of what is contributory to their develop- 
ment, 179, 180. Methods of story-telling which 
chain the mind to sense-perception — Wide preva- 
lence of these methods, 180-83. Picture-writing — 
Repudiation of design — Results of this repudia- 
tion, 183, 184. Summary: First, the free-play pro- 
gramme discourages self-activity; second, minimizes 
exercise of hands and fingers; third, arrests intelli- 
gence; fourth, interferes with development of will, 



xxiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

185-87. Influence of free-play ideal upon existing 
kindergartens: First, undue increase of games of 
mere physical movement; second, concentration of 
interest upon animals; third, use of valueless toys; 
fourth, elimination of valuable instrumentalities; 
fifth, omission of exercises which organize experience ; 
sixth, enslaving methods of story-telling; seventh, 
repudiation of symbolism; eighth, repudiation oJ 
design, 187, 188. Comparison of Froebelian, con- 
centric, and free-play kindergartens — The first 
recognizes both the values of life and the self-activity 
of the child — The second denies self-activity but 
recognizes values — The third denies self -activity and 
ignores values, 188, 189. 

CHAPTER VII 
The Individual and the Race .... 190-225 
Contemporary Rousseauism — It fails to adjust the rival 
claims of biologic and historic recapitulation — It 
puts an arresting emphasis upon feral and animal 
activities — It gives scant attention to five important 
questions: First, Are all the stages of the process 
of development directly related as antecedents and 
consequences? second. Do some race experiences 
represent a wandering from the path of progress? 
third, Must the individual recapitulate such wander- 
ings? fourth, Have goodness and wisdom been 
achieved by following nature or warring against 
nature? fifth. If by war, whence came the ideals 
which incited war? 189-93. Discussion of the pre- 
cept, Give Nature her fling: First, among our native 
instincts are many to which we must not give free 
fling; second, history shows that virtue has been 
achieved through self-restraint; third, psychology 
insists upon inhibition — The method of laissez-alLr 
arrests development at its point of departure, 193-97. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS Xav^ 

PAGE 

Discussion of the precept, Make virtue pay: First, 
it presupposes that the child is wholly selfish; second, 
it appeals to selfishness by making good acts of 
profit and bad acts of disadvantage; third, thereby 
it substitutes expediency for virtue; fourth, its pre- 
supposition is of more than doubtful validity, but its 
method finds many parallels in history, 197-203. A 
third method of moral education — Moral ideals uni- 
versalize antecedent but limited affections — Love and 
sympathy are native emotions — By enlarging their 
range and increasing their strength we may ex- 
pel baser emotions — "Expulsive power of higher 
affections" — The activity of inhibition directed not 
against terminal acts but initial emotions — In- 
hibitory results produced by self -expressive methods 
— The motive power which makes possible the exten- 
sion of love and sympathy, faith in the fatherhood of 
God and the brotherhood of man — Faith implied in 
all forms of human society — Final premise of true 
moral education faith in personality as supreme 
principle of the universe and in the soul of man as 
participating in this principle — Vindication of this 
premise by history, philosophy, and psychology, 
204-18. Froebel's statement that the feeling of com- 
munity supplies the point of departure for moral 
education, 219. Definition of different virtues as 
modes of action called forth by right relationship 
between individuals and social wholes — Conclusion 
that good habits must be formed by good actions and 
good actions performed through individual initiative, 
220, 221. In intellectual education no less than in 
moral lower interests must be inhibited by creating 
higher ones — Attention the beginning of intellectual 
culture — It is an activity of inhibition — Two forms 
of attention: First, voluntary attention; second, 
selective interest — Through acts of voluntary atten- 
tion we become the determiners of our own selective 



xxvi TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

interest, 222, 223. Answers to questions: First, evo- 
lution by antagonism; second, mankind has often 
strayed from the path of progress: third, abortive 
experiments should not be repeated ; fourth, progress 
by war against nature ; fifth, ideals are universalized 
affections, 223, 224. Contemporary Rousseauism 
claims that the development of the individual 
should repeat that of the race — In practice it repeats 
a discarded terminus ah quo, 224, 225. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The New Return to Nature 226-38 

The new return to nature presupposes that all things 
may be explained by their process of becoming — 
Reaction of this presupposition upon men's views 
of customs, institutions, religion, art, and literature, 
226-30. The history of the new return to nature is 
the history of the free-play kindergarten writ large — 
In every sphere it shows a rapid regress from false 
freedom to fate, 230-32. Froebel's studies of child- 
hood were influenced by the presupposition that 
in the structure of consciousness must be sought 
the key to nature, man, and education, 232-34. 
The fundamental tenet of Neo-Rousseauism is 'Hhat 
pedagogics must seek the ways and means of in- 
vesting man's capital of native instincts," 234-36. 
Froebel holds that man and the universe are evolving 
in a discernible direction toward a definable goal — 
This goal defined as an infinite community of souls 
each of which fulfills itself through communion with 
all others — The universe is psychical in its nature — 
The nature of consciousness must determine both the 
subject matter and the method of education, 236- 
38. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS XXVll 
CHAPTER IX 

PAGE 

The Industrial Programme 239-80 

The industrial programme concentric in form — Its cores 
of concentration primitive industries, 239, 240. An 
industrial programme, 241-43. Loss of the crea- 
tive idea that the form of play shall be freighted 
with the values of life — Discussion of work and 
play: Work is activity directed by a purpose; 
its demand that the worker shall hold himself to 
his task ; its value that it teaches the great lesson of 
self-subordination — Play is activity for its own 
sake; its value is that it creates the seK which later 
shall learn to subordinate itself — Confusion of mind 
shown in recent discussions of work and play — 
Activities which offer scope for originality will tend 
to assume the form of play, 244-49. Most important 
arguments advanced for the introduction of house- 
hold industries into the kindergarten — Historic re- 
capitulation substituted for biologic recapitulation — 
Primitive industrial activities said to explain the 
instinctive reactions of children — These primitive 
activities represented to-day by household industries 
— Denial of this claim — Denial of the claim that the 
psychical attitudes of childhood can be fully ex- 
plained by heredity — Denial of the claim that even 
instinctive reactions have been created solely by 
racial activities of industrial type, 249-57. Discus- 
sion of the argument that children should repeat 
primitive industries in order to dissolve the "dream 
of magic," 257-59. The method of the industrial 
programme involves a persistent appeal to the under- 
standing, 259-6 L Constructive work, 261-63. The 
method of Froebel follows the order of psychologic 
development and provides for an ascent of activity 
from physical movement, through symbolic represen- 
tation and experimental arrangement to free creation 



xxviii TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

—This method illustrated, 263-68. One practical 
issue between Froebelian and industrial kinder- 
gartners is the relative stress which they respectively 
place upon utility and beauty — Dangers threatening 
the United States — A second issue relates to the 
order of mental development — Froebelian kinder- 
gartners hold that this order is play, art, work, 268-71. 
Reaction of the industrial ideal upon kindergarten 
games, 271, 272. Reaction of the same ideal upon 
stories, 272-78. Work and play, understanding 
and imagination contrast with and supplement each 
other — Insistence upon priority of play over work 
in the order of development, 278-80. 

CHAPTER X 

The Socialization of the School .... 281-99 
The industrial programme is related to the movement 
known as the socialization of the school, 281. The 
school shall become ''an embryonic yet typical com- 
munity" — Industries shall be the articulating centers 
of school life, 282-85. Relationship between the 
articulating centers of the socialized school and the 
Herbartian cores of concentration — Reasons given 
for the substitution of primitive industries for prim- 
itive culture products, 285-87. Attempt to solve 
the problem of discipHne through participation 
in productive activities, 287-89. Unification of 
studies — Industries as articulating centers of his- 
tory, science, literature, and art, 289-94. Industrial 
activities as mediators between the native interests 
of childhood and the studies of the school — Fourfold 
interests of the child: First, interest in communica- 
tion; second, in finding out about things; third, in 
construction; fourth, in artistic expression, 295-97. 
Summary: " The facts and truths that enter into the 
child's present experience and those contained in the 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxix 

PAGE 

subject matter of studies" can be connected because 
"they are the initial and final terms of one reality," 
297-99. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Living Issue 300-38 

Agreements between the ideal of the kindergarten and 
the aims of the socialized school — An anxious ques- 
tion, 300, 30L Industries and literature. Discussion 
of two questions : First, Are industries the progenitors 
of culture-products ; second. Is the reflection of local 
and temporal conditions the chief value of literature? 
— Life and industry are not coextensive terms — • 
The literature of an age cannot be explained by its 
industries — The literature of each nation and each 
age reflects all aspects of its life — The life reflected is 
itself either an approximate embodiment of generic 
ideals or a struggle of the generic spirit to define these 
ideals more adequately — Illustrations — Discussion 
of myth — Its value as a primordial revelation of 
generic ideals, 302-13. Industries and art — Art 
is not the child of industry — The true order of devel- 
opment is play, art, work — The attempt to derive 
art from industry implies a conception of art which 
ignores its defining mark — Picture-writing is not art 
— The principle of art is order — Art is play or spon- 
taneous activity which imposes upon itself the 
structural form of human consciousness — True 
method of art teaching, 313-18. Industries and his- 
tory — Discussion of the question: Is it through 
occupations determined by natural environment that 
mankind has made its political and historical prog- 
ress? — Great value of that view of history which as- 
cends from the idea of extraneous relations between 
man and the world to the idea of a self-related total- 



XXX TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ity of historic experience — A non sequitur conclusion 
from this conception of history — The final source of 
human progress is free activity — Humanity ascends 
to higher levels through activities which are their own 
ends — Religion is the foundation of moral life and 
the creator of civilization — Oriental and occidental 
civilizations contrasted — The contrast explained by 
their contrasting religions — The marvels of modern 
industry a by-product of Christianity, 318-27. His- 
tory is the progress of man into the consciousness of 
freedom, 327, 328. Industries and science — The 
method which makes industries the articulating 
centers of science is open to two objections: First, 
it demands syntheses children cannot make ; second, 
it prevents a scientific evolution of the sciences, 329, 
330. The merit of the socialized school is that it 
attempts to guide the spontaneous activities of 
childhood toward the corresponding values of life — 
Its defect is that it makes industries articulating 
centers for all other values — In defense of its pro- 
cedure it invokes the principle of historic recapitula- 
tion — In reality this principle condemns its procedure 
— All great human values are aboriginal expressions 
of the free human spirit — The final explanation of the 
defect of the socialized school is the conviction that 
the sole aim of the school is to prepare for social life 
combined with a conception of social life which iden- 
tifies it with industrial life — The socialized school 
fails to make adequate provision ''for the things 
fertile of distinctive individuality," 330-33. In- 
dustrial activities and school discipline — The order 
of the workshop substituted for the order of the 
traditional school — Inconsistency of this procedure, 
334-36. Contrast between the method of Froebel 
and the method of the socialized school, 337, 338. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxxi 
CHAPTER XII 

PAGE 

Three World- Views 339-86 

Generative idea of Goethe's Faust — This idea a key to 
the issue in men's souls to-day — Man is conscious — 
If there be no eternal consciousness to which his con- 
sciousness corresponds he is an outcast of the uni- 
verse, 339-41. Naturalism explains the world-order 
as a chance process with a tragic outcome, 341-43. 
Reaction against this explanation as shown in litera- 
ture, science, and psychology — Literature portrays 
purposes as opposed to instincts — Science suspects 
that natural selection cannot fully explain evolution 
and recognizes the influence of intelligence — Psychol- 
ogy discovers that "a belief in free will is still open to 
us" — Force the correlate of will — Characteristic fea- 
ture of contemporary thought the transfer of atten- 
tion from instinct to will, from human passions to 
human purposes — No agreement as to what these 
purposes should be — The end of man is assumed to 
be action — But action itself needs a final end — This 
final end hidden from many contemporary thinkers 
— Conventional morality replaced by adaptive in- 
genuity — Repudiation of "absolute standards and 
eternal values," 343-51. Philosophy is conscious- 
ness exploring, inventorying, organizing, and explain- 
ing its own content — Pragmatism is the philosophy 
which most nearly explains the content of much 
contemporary thought — Pragmatism was first a 
method of philosophic procedure — The pragmatic 
method tests ideas by their consequences — It lacks 
a criterion by which to test these consequences them- 
selves — Solution of this dilemma attempted by the 
extension of pragmatism from a method of philo- 
sophic procedure to a theory of truth — As a method 
pragmatism asks what will work — As a theory of 



xxxii TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

truth it is "the conviction that ideas become true in 
so far as they accompHsh the work of uniting new- 
experience with old " — The outcome of the pragmatic 
doctrine is "that the true is only the expedient in the 
way of our thinking just as the right is only the 
expedient in the way of our behaving — Accord of 
pragmatism with the spirit of contemporary literature 
— Both deny the conception of truth as correspond- 
ence with eternal reality — With emergence of this 
denial into clear consciousness pragmatism becomes 
not only a method for testing the validity of ideas 
and a genetic theory of truth but also a hypothesis 
with regard to the structure of the universe — This 
hypothesis is that the universe is in process of mak- 
ing; that it has alternative possibilities and that its 
future is not assured — The universe has no will of its 
own — As we substitute truths in the plural for 
*' Truth with a big T and in the singular," so we 
must substitute wills in the plural for one eternal 
and absolute will — " Pragmatism postpones dogmatic 
answer with regard to the subject of religion," but 
the sympathies of pragmatists are with "the view 
that the universe is ultimately a joint-stock affair — 
Salvation is uncertain and partial, 351-60. Kinship 
between the philosophy of naturalism and the re- 
ligious creed of farther Asia — Three tenets of the 
Oriental creed, one unity; indifference to moral 
distinctions — Extinction — Revival of these tenets, 
360-64. Kinship between pragmatism and Zoro- 
astrianism — Characteristic feature of Zoroastrianism 
the renunciation of unity and the setting up of dis- 
tinction — Great deed of this religion the determina- 
tion to fight evil — •Pragmatism has arisen out of a 
resolute grapple with the enigma of evil — Belief of 
pragmatists that idealism holds an immoral doctrine 
of evil, 364-70. The philosophy of absolute idealism 
— Its presupposition is that the final explanation of 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxxill 

PAGE 

the universe must be sought in a completely realized 
self-consciousness — Denial of this presupposition 
underlies every practical issue discussed in this book, 
370-72. Many interpreters of idealism have aided 
to bring their fundamental postulate into disrepute 
by assuming that the perfect self-consciousness in- 
cludes all individual selves — This assumption makes 
God the author of evil — The human soul is not a part 
of God — Each human soul is a duplicate of the self- 
determining form of the divine self-consciousness, 
372, 373. The distinctive characteristic of self-con- 
sciousness is subject-objectivity — The self makes 
itself its own object and recognizes itself in its 
object — In this self-objectifying act intellect and 
will are conjoined — The object of a perfect self -con- 
sciousness must be another consciousness in every 
respect its equal — The eternal logos, 373-76. The 
fact that all idealists have not reached this conclusion 
does not militate against its logical necessity, but 
suggests that the implications of the idealistic pre- 
supposition have not been adequately apprehended — 
The results of this inadequate apprehension are the 
philosophies of monism and pluralism: Monism loses 
human freedom, responsibility, and immortality — 
Pluralism loses noetic unity and is confronted with 
the problem how eternal souls can be in a process of 
becoming — The conception of an eternal self-con- 
sciousness objectifying and recognizing itself in a 
second self-consciousness, which is in every respect 
its equal but differs from it in the fact that it is gener- 
ated in infinite past times through this self -objectify- 
ing act, solves the problems which are insoluble by 
monism and pluralism, 376-78. Words, first and 
second persons, substituted for first and second self- 
consciousness — Difference between the first and 
second persons — The self -objectifying consciousness 
of the first is that of an aboriginal generator; the 



xxxiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

consciousness of the second is that of a generator who 
has been eternally generated — His knowledge of his 
perfect personality is objectified as a third perfect 
person — His knowledge of himself as generated in 
infinite past time is objectified as a process ascending 
from nothingness to identification with the first 
perfect person — A process completed in infinite past 
time — This objectified process is the evolutionary 
ascent of nature and man — Its consummation is the 
cosmic community which collects power from each 
of its members and endows each with the power of all 
— This cosmic community has existed from all eter- 
nity, 378-82. The enigma of the world is the exist- 
ence of evil — The insight that creation arises through 
the contemplation by the second person of his own 
derivation solves this enigma, 383. Goodness and 
justice as necessary attributes of God — Goodness is 
altruism or love which gives itself — Justice or the 
return of the deed upon the doer is recognition of the 
real freedom conferred by divine altruism — Perfect 
justice can only be exercised toward a perfect being — 
To exercise it toward imperfect beings would make 
an evolutionary world-order impossible — Since this 
evolutionary world-order is necessarily presupposed 
by the self -objectifying act through which the second 
person makes actual his own timeless derivation, 
altruism must be recognized as the fundamental prin- 
ciple of the divine character and justice be given 
validity only in so far as it does not make against 
altruism, 384-86. 



PAGE 



EDUCATIONAL ISSUES IN THE 
KINDERGARTEN 



CHAPTEK I 

THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 

The kindergarten is the attempted embodiment 
of a few great educational ideas. The imperfect 
apprehension of any one of these ideas enfeebles 
its practice; the false apprehension of any one of 
these ideas distorts its practice. Moreover, the in- 
adequately or falsely apprehended idea is betrayed 
into strange alliances, and thereby undergoes a 
radical change which is reflected in every detail 
of practical work. Hence, during the past twenty- 
five years there have arisen three great departures 
from the principles and methods of the historic 
kindergarten. The practical outcome of the first 
departure was the concentric programme; that of 
the second the free play programme; that of the 
third the industrial programme. To illustrate and 
discuss these several programmes, elicit the ideas 
which created them, and present the contrasting 
principles and practice of Froebel will be the effort 
of this book. 

2 1 



2 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

The characteristic feature of the concentric pro- 
gramme is the connection of all exercises with a 
concentration center, and the consequent subordi- 
nation of gifts, occupations, and games to the pur- 
pose of illustrating a chosen theme. As example 
is better than description, I present a concentric 
programme which received the prize of fifty dol- 
lars offered by the Patria Club of New York for 
a kindergarten exercise adapted to training chil- 
dren in patriotism, and which, in a preface pre- 
pared by a special committee of the club, is de- 
clared to be '^ the best among many admirable ex- 
ercises sent by skilled kindergartners from various 
parts of the United States." The theme of this 
programme is the life and character of Abraham 
Lincoln, and the exercises are planned for the four 
school days preceding his birthday. 

FIRST DAY 

Morning Talk. — The early home of Lincoln in Ken- 
tucky. Lincoln's mother. The removal to Indiana. 
The " half -face camp." Little Abe's bed of leaves. 
His kind stepmother. His school days. Hospitality 
and self-respect of his father, in spite of poverty. 
How Abraham "did his sums." How he learned to 
write. His first earnings. His flatboat. 

Gift. — A sequence. 1. " The half -face camp." 2. 
The fire shovel and Abraham's four favorite books. 
3. His flatboat. 4. The fireplace by which he worked. 
5. The table at which he wrote letters for the neigh- 
bors. 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 3 

Occupation. — Cutting and pasting*. Cut out shovel 
and paste on card. Speak of Lincoln's faithfulness in 
doing difficult tasks, and encourage the children to 
emulate it. 

SECOND DAY 

Morning Talk. — The youth of Abraham Lincoln. 
He is trusted on a long journey down the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers. Removal to Illinois. Helps his 
father build the log-cabin. Hires out to split rails, 
being paid in cloth for his clothes — four hundred rails 
for one yard of homespun. Carrying the hogs to 
New Orleans in flatboat. His honesty when a clerk, 
walking several miles to return six cents which he had 
unwittingly overcharged a customer. 

Gift. — Tablets, squares, and half squares. Arrange 
to represent flatboat. May be loaded with second 
gift cylinder beads as barrels of produce, or with 
paper objects, pigs or other stock, known to have been 
carried by Lincoln. 

Occupation. — Sand-table. Ohio and Mississippi 
rivers, from Hlinois to Gulf; make flatboat of four 
square tablets or folded paper. Do not enter into 
minute detail as to the topography; rather offer a 
description that may give an idea of the mighty rivers 
and the time necessary to float down them, their as- 
pect both day and night, the change in the climate 
and population observable as the boat drifted south, 
etc. 

THIRD DAY 

Morning Talk. — Lincoln as " captain," storekeeper, 
postmaster, surveyor. Walked one hundred miles in 
his homespun clothes to help make the laws in the 



4 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

Legislature. Kindness and honesty as a lawyer. Lin- 
coln and the pig. Lincoln's belief concerning slavery. 

Gift, — Sticks ; measuring and counting - lesson. 
Connect with Lincoln's surveying experiences, giving 
names of different farms, and making as graphic as 
possible. 

Occupation. — Fold beauty forms in red, white, and 
blue paper, by dictation, to make a frame for Lin- 
coln's picture. 

FOURTH DAY 

Morning Talk, — Lincoln as member of Congress 
and President. Causes of the Civil War, given im- 
partially, and not too much in detail. The Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation. Joy at the close of the war. A 
little of the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin may be help- 
ful in making the children feel admiration and sym- 
pathy for the slaves, and the necessity of their being 
set free. 

Gift. — Peas-laying. Form of beauty. — Connect 
with the Capitol by copying some detail in architect- 
ure, pavement or carving which may be shown in a 
picture of the exterior or interior of the building. 

Occupation. — Paste chains with which to decorate 
Lincoln's picture — symbolic of the chains which he 
removed from his fellow man. 

Games. — It is very inspiring to the children to 
dramatize the life of Lincoln in the simpler phases of 
his career. Generally these are the principal games 
during the four days allotted to the study of his life. 
The children come to have a genuine love for him, 
and to feel that to be worthy of their country they 
must be like him in character. (Show portrait of Lin- 
coln during the morning talk.) 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 5 

In order that we may realize how widely this 
programme deviates from Froebelian aims and 
methods, let us imagine that a pioneer of the 
kindergarten movement, withdrawn by untoward 
causes from knowledge of passing events in the 
educational world, is making her first visit to a 
kindergarten after an absence of many years. 
With a shock of surprise she becomes aAvare that 
nearly the whole of the first brisk morning hour 
is given up to story and talk. She recalls the 
missionary zeal with which she hurled at ancient 
school methods her revolutionary insight that 
'^ play is the point of departure for education be- 
cause it is self-active representation of the inner 
life from inner necessity and impulse." She re- 
members the changes rung upon this insistent 
theme; the fine scorn with which kindergartners 
inveighed against " pouring into the child " ; their 
fervent confessions of that prime article of faith, 
" the doer is the ancestor of the learner " ; their 
triumphant proclamations of the truth that " man, 
made in the image of his Creator, must from the 
beginning of life be conceived and treated as a cre- 
ative being." Yet here are sixty children sitting 
around a circle doing nothing, and one grown-up 
person pouring out herself and pouring into them. 
What has been happening during those years of 
her enforced seclusion? Is the kindergarten tot- 
tering and are its very foundations giving way? 



6 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

At last the morning talk is over, and the chil- 
dren, seated at tables, are ready to begin building. 
The pioneer's heart beats with fresh hope. Mem- 
ories of the delight of her own little ones in their 
freely created forms revive in her mind, and she 
waits with eagerness for the moment when each 
child before her shall give sign through his prod- 
uct of what is passing within him. But the spirit 
of Seventy-six is dead in the kindergarten of 
Ninety-six, and twenty children mechanically fol- 
low the directions for making a ^' half -face camp," 
Abraham's four favorite books, his flatboat, the 
fireplace by which he worked, and the table at 
which he wrote letters. The exercise drags through 
its weary length to its end, and it is time to march 
to the circle. The delight of old-time ball games 
and jolly races stirs in our pioneer's veins; pic- 
tures of children who seemed really transformed 
into birds and butterflies crowd the canvas of 
memory ; busy farmers, millers, carpenters, wheel- 
wrights pass in gay panorama before the eye of 
imagination. But all these images of the past 
vanish as she turns her attention forcibly to the 
actual circle upon which little victims of the con- 
centric programme are dramatizing the life of 
Lincoln. By the time the dreary drama is over, 
our veteran is prepared for the worst, watches 
almost Avithout inner protest the cutting and past- 
ing of shovels, and listens with chastened and sub- 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 7 

dued amazement to the still outpouring director 
who, intent upon filling children's minds with a 
" thought mass," and pointing its moral, dilates 
upon '^ Lincoln's faithfulness in doing difficult 
tasks, and encourages her little pupils to emulate 
his example." 

Our pioneer kindergartner must make a heroic 
wrestle with " many thoughts of many men " be- 
fore she can appreciate the conspiring influences 
whose outcome she has beheld in the revolutionized 
kindergarten. For the moment we dismiss her to 
a struggle which we, too, shall make in sequent 
chapters of this book. Our immediate purpose 
is to form some fair judgment of the concentric 
programme, and this involves an effort to discrim- 
inate between defects due to its constructive prin- 
ciple, defects incident to the perversion of educa- 
tional ideals in themselves correct, and defects due 
to lack of individual wisdom with regard to sub- 
jects which may be profitably presented to the 
minds of little children. E'o theory of education 
may be blamed for the attempt to suggest to chil- 
dren between the ages of four and six the causes 
of our Civil War; and not the concentric ideal, 
but the bad judgment of the kindergartner is re- 
sponsible for the effort to thrill infant hearts with 
the Emancipation Proclamation. The Froebelian 
doctrine of symbolism is not impugned by its piti- 
ful perversion in the exercise ^^ of pasting chains 



8 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

with which to decorate Lincoln's picture — sym- 
bolic of the chains which he removed from his 
fellow man." On the other hand, the programme 
cited has four marked defects arising from its 
constructive principle and common to all pro- 
grammes of its type. The first of these defects 
is the assumed priority of conscious thought over 
impulse and activity ; the second is the imposition 
of an externally unified whole of thought; the 
third is the sacrifice of specific values in exercises 
with the gifts and occupations, and the fourth is 
the substitution of arbitrary connections for those 
causal ties which it is one great aim of all sound 
education to reveal. 

What becomes of that cardinal principle of pro- 
gressive pedagogy that " in the beginning is the 
act," if children may not act until their minds 
have been filled by the kindergartner with a 
thought content? What becomes of originality 
when every detail of every exercise is planned and 
prescribed ? How shall each gift be so used as to 
throw into relief its own specific quality if all 
exercises must illustrate some chosen theme? 
Finally, what are we doing for a human mind 
when we respond to its yearning for the dis- 
covery of causal ties by such pitiful exercises as 
" an effort to connect with the capital through 
copying some detail in architecture, paving, or 
carving ? " 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 9 

The progi'amme cited is one of the earlier em- 
bodiments of the concentric ideal. It is the hybrid 
product of a mixed marriage between Froebelian 
instrumentalities and non-Froebelian aims and 
methods. Its author is, however, serenely un- 
aw^are of the antagonistic ideas arming for war 
" below the threshold of her consciousness." To 
us, on the contrary, it should now be evident that 
the aim of this programme is instruction and its 
method an attempted unification of many distinct 
exercises through their connection with a concen- 
tration center. Later and more conscious efforts 
to realize this aim and carry out this method have 
resulted in a protracted struggle of varying for- 
tunes. Instinct with their own creative purpose, 
the Froebelian gifts, games, and occupations have 
proved recalcitrant to the yoke of foreign and 
tyrannical ideas. Hence, wherever traditional 
school aims and concentric methods have prevailed 
it has been found necessary to eliminate many 
of Froebel's gifts and occupations, exclude num- 
bers of his games, and discard some of his most 
characteristic types of exercise. The result of 
such eliminations, exclusions, and rejections is that 
the kindergarten loses its distinctive merit and the 
Froebelian instrumentalities cease to be an or- 
ganic whole through the active use of whose related 
elements the child organizes his own thought, feel- 
ing, and will. 



10 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

Scores of concentric programmes have been cre- 
ated by kindergartners, and their themes have 
been as varied as the mental proclivities of their 
creators. The exercises of different kindergart- 
ners have circled and whirled around Hiawatha; 
around the Seven Little Sisters ; • around selected 
Mother Plays; around Mother Goose rhymes; 
around pine trees, water, and potatoes, and finally 
incited by the suggestion of Dr. Hall that " in 
the nearness of children to animals there is a rich 
but undiscovered silo of educational possibilities," 
they have been set to gyrating around our furred 
and feathered brethren of forest and field. What- 
ever the subject chosen as core of concentration 
the results of the method have been the same. 
The specific value of each form of material has 
been destroyed; the sane and healthy balance of 
the games has been lost ; gifts have been hopelessly 
mixed or recklessly discarded; forms of knowl- 
edge have been eliminated ; forms of beauty min- 
imized to a vanishing point; fortuitous connec- 
tions have taken the place of causal ties; sym- 
bolism has been scouted and flouted; originality 
has been sapped and the apperceptive mass of the 
kindergartner ruthlessly imposed upon the minds 
of her pupils. Surely this procedure does what 
education should not do and leaves undone what 
it should do. 

It may be said that as it exists in the kinder- 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 11 

garten the concentric programme is not the out- 
come of a conscious attempt to apply the prin- 
ciples of any plan of education, but is simply a 
method of procedure spread by contagion from 
higher grades of school work. It may also be 
urged that any fair attack upon the concentric 
method should be directed against its theoretic 
presentation and practical illustration by the edu- 
cators who are responsible for its existence and 
extension. Admitting the force of this chal- 
lenge, I 'shall endeavor to meet it as directly as 
possible. 

It is matter of familiar knowledge that the 
pedigree of programmes of the type I have been 
describing traces back to the Ziller-Rein school of 
Herbartian educators. It is also quite generally 
recognized that the theoretic basis of such pro- 
grammes is that principle of concentration which 
demands the connection of every exercise with a 
Gesinnungs-Stoff or matter appealing to sentiment 
and imagination. This unifying core is selected 
from culture products belonging to successive 
periods of race development which it is claimed 
repeat themselves in the development of each indi- 
vidual, and it must possess an ethical value whose 
extraction and application is the goal of concen- 
tric exercises. Obviously the crucial question is 
that of concentration, for if the principle of con- 
centration be proved untenable, it is superfluous 



12 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

to consider any criterion for the selection of con- 
centration material.^ 

The following general programme, which Dr. 
De Garmo quotes from Dr. Rein, will illustrate 
the application of the principle of concentration 
to the first year of school work.^ 

!1. Core of Concentration \ Drawing, Singing, Num- 
>• ber, Reading, and 
2. Nature-Study ) Writing. 

1. Ethical Core of Concentration (Gesinnungs- 
Stoff) ; Grimm's Fairy Tales. These form the center, 
or core, of instruction. The other branches are con- 
centrated about them; and by them the remaining 
topics are largely determined. 

2. Nature-Study. — All the subjects that are sug- 
gested by the Fairy Tales, receiving a special illumi- 
nation from them and thereby awakening an intensi- 
fied interest, are first chosen for treatment. School 
life and individual experience furnish much supple- 
mentary matter. (See list of object lessons below.) 

3. Drawing. — For this purpose the objects men- 
tioned in the Fairy Tales and in the nature-study are 
used. 

> For discussions of this subject, see Introduction to Her- 
bart's Science and Practice of Education, by Henry M. and 
Emmie Felkin, pp. 121-154, D. C. Heath & Co.— Ufer's 
Pedagogy of Herbart, pp. 54-104, D. C. Heath & Co.— Ap- 
perception, Lange, pp. 109-151, D. C. Heath & Co. — Herbart 
and the Herbartians, De Garmo, pp. 101-165, Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons. 

' Herbart and the Herbartians, De Garmo, pp. 143-144. 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 13 

4. Singing. — The choice of songs is determined by 
the moods developed by instruction and by school life. 
The various songs must express emotion at fitting 
times. 

5. Number Work. — This is connected closely with 
the things that are considered in the various culture 
and nature subjects. 

6. Reading and Writing. — The material is chosen 
from the topics treated during instruction in Fairy 
Tales and Nature-Study. 

It is admitted by candid Herbartians that the 
most formidable difficulty confronting the concen- 
tric programme is the fusion of subjects which 
have no natural affinity in a single apperceptive 
mass. Experience would seem to indicate that 
this difficulty is not only formidable but insur- 
mountable. As an example of what I am forced 
to call the absurdities into which the concentric 
methods betrays its votaries, I quote an illustra- 
tive lesson on the Treatment of the IN'umber Three 
by Dr. Karl Just Altenburg, in which the ven- 
turesome attempt is made to seek in a fairy tale 
an appealing point of departure for an arithmetic 
lesson. 

AIM 

How many persons were in the home of the little 
girl of Sternthal (first fairy tale) when her father 
and mother were yet alive? 

Clearness (analysis and synthesis). — There was first 



14 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

her father (1) then her mother (1 + 1) and then 
the good little girl (2 + 1). Together there were 
therefore three. 

But now her father died (3 — 1) and there were 
left mother and daughter; then her mother died, too 
(2 — 1) and the little girl was left alone. At last the 
little girl went away (1 — 1) and there was nobody 
left in the house.* 

It is self-evident that no child will learn any- 
thing from this exercise which he did not already 
know. Waiving, however, the question of its 
futility and forbearing all comment upon its 
method, which blindly assumes that because num- 
bers are small, complicated analyses and syntheses 
are easy, I will only ask whether any person can 
believe for a moment that a fairy tale will seize 
more strongly upon imagination or that its ethical 
import will be more readily distilled because of 
the attempt to make it a medium for teaching 
arithmetic, and, conversely, whether the number 
three will appeal more sympathetically to the 
heart of childhood because of its lugubrious asso- 
ciation with the death of a father and mother and 
the wandering of a forlorn orphan. 

That arithmetic is not the only study which 
refuses to blend in a pleasing penumbra around a 

* Pedagogy of Herbart, Ufer, p. 121. I have cited only 
that portion of the lesson which connects the number three 
with the fairy tale. 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 15 

literary core of consciousness will be apparent to 
any reader who will study carefully the following 
concentric programme for children of the first 
grade. ^ 

FIKST GKADE 

Literature. — The Fir Tree, Andersen. 

Science. — (a) White Pine as a type of evergreens, 
since it is more common here than any other ever- 
green tree. 

(b) Austrian Pine. 

(c) Scotch Pine. 

(d) Norway Spruce. 

(e) Balsam Fir. 

Reading. — " A Pine Twig " and " Story of a Pine 
Tree," in Nature Stories for Young Readers. Also 
sentences on the board taken from the Science and 
Literature work, like those immediately following: 

Written Language: Sentences based on Literature, 
thus: 

The fir tree lived in the forest. 

It was not happy. 

It wished to be tall. 

A little rabbit sometimes jumped over the tree. 

This made the tree ashamed. 

Or based on Science, thus: 

The fir tree is green all winter. 

Sometimes the snow covers it. 

Then it is a white tree. 

The snow does not break the limbs. They bend 
down. 

1 Cited from Dr. Frank McMurray in Herbart and the 
Herbartians, De Garmo, p. 123. 



16 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

See how they are fastened into the trunk. 

I cannot break off the twigs. 

Writing. — (All the small letters this year.) 

If the children are ready to study r, take the words 
fir, rahhity green, tree. 

If some other letter should be studied, similar 
groups of words bearing on the study of the fir will 
suggest themselves to the teacher. 

Drawing. — (a) Drawing of pines and firs, with col- 
ored chalk or crayon. 

(&) Drawing, and sewing in perforated board, of 
evergreen trees, of cones, and of rabbit. 

(c) Moulding — trunk of evergreen, tub in which it 
was placed, toys that adorned it. 

(d) Drawing of different scenes in the story, as of 
woodcutters hauling the trees from the forest, etc. 

(a, ft, c, are from Science, d is from Literature.) 

Numher. — Number of needles in a bundle of White, 
Scotch, or Austrian pine; in two bundles of White 
pine; in two, four, five of Scotch or Austrian pine. 

Number of wings on two, three, etc., seeds. 

Number of pairs of legs on rabbit. 

Number of wheels on wagon that hauled the tree 
away. 

How many span of horses? 

Music. — " High in the Top of an old Pine Tree." 

Poems. — " Pine Needles." 

" The Little Fir Trees." 

" The Pine Tree's Secret." 

The most interesting feature of this programme 
is its attempt to derive science lessons and con- 
structive work from a story. That the attempt 
results in fortuitous connections is manifest, and 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 17 

were the programme to fall into the hands of an 
intelligent person unfamiliar with the theory of 
concentration it would doubtless inspire a ques- 
tion why any external or arbitrary association of 
ideas should be thrust upon or insinuated into the 
minds of pupils by teachers. To this question two 
answers might suggest themselves. The first is 
that some natural distaste of children for con- 
structive work, drawing, modeling, counting, the 
observation of natural objects and other kinder- 
garten and school exercises needs to be overcome, 
while the second may hold that the native interest 
of children in these specific forms of activity 
should be utilized to make selected themes pre- 
potent as determiners of the neural associations 
through which a preferred apperceptive mass may 
be created and a desired type of character formed. 
^o intelligent person would halt long over the 
first answer, for it is impossible to believe in the 
implied absence or weakness of the constructive 
and classifying instincts, or admit the lack of 
that eager curiosity to test objects by the five 
senses, which is the bud of the higher intellectual 
powers. Professor James tells us " that up to 
the eighth or ninth year of childhood one may 
say the child does hardly anything else than han- 
dle objects, explore things with his hands, doing 
and undoing, setting up and knocking down, put- 
ting together and pulling apart," and that ^' con- 
3 



18 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

struction and destruction are really two names for 
one activity, for both signify the production of 
change and the working of effects in outward 
things." The child's delight in drawing, model- 
ing, and cutting is an expression of this inborn 
constructive instinct, which being itself a stimu- 
lus does not need stimulating. The desire to 
count springs spontaneously out of the impulse 
to classify, or, as Froebel puts it, " In the devel- 
opment of number ideas we have an illustration 
in what manner and by what laws the child 
ascends from the perception of individual things 
to the more general and the most general con- 
cepts." Finally, it cannot be too strongly insisted 
upon that children are curious about the qualities 
of objects in and for themselves, loving the shapes, 
groupings, colors, and odors of external things, 
just as they love " the softness of mud, the wet- 
ness of water, and the magnificent soapiness of 
soap." It would seem, therefore, an act of 
supererogation to set a child's thoughts gyrating 
around the story of the fir tree in order to 
beguile him into counting its needles, sewing its 
cones, modeling the tub in which it is placed, 
or drawing the rabbit who occasionally jumps 
over it. 

Forced to reject the first horn of our dilemma, 
let us examine the second, and ask ourselves 
whether, granting the native and absorbing in- 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 19 

terest of children in material qualities, in group- 
ing and counting things, in making and breaking 
things, we may and should utilize these interests 
to give certain ethical ideals concretely embodied 
in stories sovereignty over the imagination. In 
other words, if we do not need the story of the 
fir tree to induce children to count, cut, sew, draw, 
model, and curiously observe, do we need count- 
ing, drawing, modeling, sewing, and observation 
exercises to create around the story a retinue of 
attendant ideas which, adding to its pomp and 
dignity, will intensify its appeal to imagination? 

It is only necessary to put this question clearly 
to realize that any effort of the kind described 
must be an abortive one for the simple reason 
that nothing so sets a mind against any subject 
as perpetually harping upon it. The healthy 
subjection of every normal child to the power 
of contrary suggestion would make the little vic- 
tim who was bidden to draw the fir tree, sew 
its cones, count its needles, model its tub, and 
study the letter r in fir, rabbit, green, and 
tree, hate the persistent evergreen with all his 
heart and soul and might, and refuse to be recon- 
ciled to it even when decked in its Christmas 
glory. 

From practical programmes based on the prin- 
ciple of concentration we must now hasten to con- 
sider defects inherent in the principle itself. Its 



20 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

most obvious error, as has been already suggested, 
is the assumption that mutually repellent subjects 
may be fused in a single apperceptive mass. The 
educators who are responsible for enthroning this 
principle would seem not to have laid sufficiently 
to heart Herbart's division of instruction " into 
two main lines, the one for understanding, the 
other for feeling and imagination." In this 
division he clearly recognizes an important differ- 
ence between scientific and humane studies. De- 
fining this difference more closely we become aware 
of a momentous contrast between physical nature 
and human nature, and realize that science and the 
humanities must differ in their aim and method, 
in the forms of mental activity to which they 
appeal, in the convictions to which they give 
birth, in the practical solutions of social problems 
which they suggest, and in the " emotional under- 
tones " which they create. 

It is a suggestive remark of Professor Huxley 
that the one act of faith in the convert to science 
is ^' the confession of the universality of order 
and of the absolute validity at all times and under 
all circumstances of the law of causation." The 
discovery of causes and the reduction of these 
causes to an interrelated system is the confessed 
aim of science. Hence the distinctive method of 
science is experimental ; the form of mental activ- 
ity to which it makes preponderant appeal is the 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 21 

understanding; the conviction to which it gives 
birth is that all particular facts are explainable 
through the totality of existent and precedent 
conditions; the plans which it suggests for the 
betterment of human nature are based upon the 
improvement of conditions, and the emotional 
undertone which it creates is one which inclines 
toward fatalism and pessimism. Studies relating 
to human nature, on the contrary, presuppose not 
the law of causation, but the principle of freedom ; 
the method for which they call is that of in- 
trospection in its ascending degrees; the forms 
of mental activity to which they appeal are 
imagination, conscience, reason, and rational 
will ; the goal toward which they point is not the 
conception of a fated universe, but of an infinite 
community of free beings who have learned so 
to think and act that self-activity never defeats 
its own divine nature; the plans for uplifting 
humanity which they inspire are plans whose 
accent is upon education, and the emotional 
undertone which they create is one of energetic 
optimism. 

'No thoughtful person will deny that human- 
istic and scientific studies complement each other, 
and that both are necessary to insure sanity of 
intellect, poise of feeling, and rationality of act. 
On the other hand, it would seem self-evident 
that between studies that cannot realize their 



22 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

own aim, cannot follow their own method, and 
cannot reach their own goal without abso- 
lutely contradicting each other, the chasm is too 
great to be bridged by any plan of concentric 
education. 

In his Talks to Teachers, Professor James re- 
marks that " the best possible sort of system into 
which to weave an object mentally is a rational 
system or science.'' " Place the thing," he con- 
tinues, ^' in a classificatory series ; explain it log- 
ically by its causes, and deduce from it its neces- 
sary effects ; find out of what natural law it is an 
instance, and you then know it in the best of all 
possible ways." ^^ If you know a law," he adds, 
*^ you may discharge your memory of masses of 
particular instances, for the law will reproduce 
them for you whenever you require them," and 
he concludes that a '^ philosophic system in which 
all things were connected together as causes and 
effects would be the perfect mnemonic system in 
which the greatest economy of means would bring 
about the greatest richness of results." This state- 
ment is an illuminating exposition of that phase 
of education which relates to the teaching of all 
branches of science. Scientific subjects should 
from the beginning of education be presented 
with constant reference to the discovery of causal 
processes. On the other hand, all the studies 
which, like literature, art, and history, are expres- 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 23 

sions of the free human spirit, should be so pre- 
sented as to quicken that appreciative power to 
which and through which alone their value is re- 
vealed. As the pupil matures he should retrace 
ascending and widening circles of causal activity 
and should create in himself ascending and in- 
creasing circles of intellectual and emotional ap- 
preciation. The reader who understands this 
statement knows the difference between concentric 
and vortical education and holds the clew to one 
great contrast between the principles and practice 
of Froebel and that of the educators who are re- 
sponsible for the promulgation and application of 
the principle of concentration. 

Not only are the distinctive values of science 
and the humanities lost through efforts to relate 
them to a common center, but special sciences and 
special groups of the humane studies require to 
be differently presented in order that their prin- 
ciple may be grasped, their revelation understood, 
their gift of power appropriated, and the par- 
ticular form of mental energy to which they 
appeal called into exercise. These truths are so 
important and so little understood that I may 
not shun the effort to throw upon them some 
little light. 

[N'atiTre studies fall into two groups, one of 
which includes mathematics and physics, the other 
botany and zoology. Physics and mathematics 



24 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

are related as body and soiilj or, in other words, 
mathematics is the animating principle of phys- 
ics. The revelation of this group of studies is 
a universe of quantitatively related forces; the 
mathematical gift of power is theoretical and 
practical mastery of inorganic nature, for whether 
man digs a cellar, builds a house, invents a ma- 
chine, computes the motions of bodies, or meas- 
ures relations of force he must use mathematics 
as his instrument. Finally, mathematics calls 
forth and disciplines that form of mental activity 
which, abstracting from the differences of objects, 
learns to think a world of magnitude. It is there- 
fore one step of withdrawal from sense perception 
and one step of that mastery of thought through 
which mind ascends to higher knowledge of the 
world. 

Passing from the first to the second group of 
nature-studies we discard the principle of mathe- 
matics in favor of the principle of life. Life is 
a formative activity related to an environment 
which it modifies and to which it adapts itself. 
The revelation of the biologic sciences is an or- 
ganically related universe and an evolutionary 
ascent of being; their gift of power to man is 
ability to improve plants, animals, and his own 
physical structure; and, finally, by training the 
understanding to think relations of reciprocal de- 
pendence they hasten the ascent of mind from the 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 25 

conception of phenomenal to that of noumenal 
being. ^ 

When we turn from nature studies to humane 
studies we leave behind us a realm of fate and 
enter a realm of freedom. The last word of the 
physical sciences is that each thing is made what 
it is through the totality of existent and precedent 
conditions. The first word of literature, art, and 
history is that man is a free being, able ^' to set 
aside internally and externally the stream of 
causation in which he finds himself." Potential 
freedom becomes actual freedom through social 
combination. The subject matter of history, lit- 
erature, and art is the relationship of human 
freedom to human solidarity. History reveals 
the growth of freedom in the state. It records 
an advance from governments in whi^h only the 
ruler is free, '^ and even he has only the semblance 
of freedom," through oligarchies wherein the few 

> In the elementary course of the school the introduction 
to both physics and biology is made through geography. 
Says Dr. Harris: "Through the geographical window of the 
soul the survey extends to organic and inorganic nature. 
The surface of the earth, its concrete relations to man as his 
habitat and as the producer of his food, clothing, and shelter, 
and the means of intercommunication which unite the de- 
tached fragments of humanity into one grand man, all these 
important matters are introduced to the pupil through the 
study of geography and spread out as a panorama before the 
second window of the soul." — Psychologic Foundations of 
Education, p. 322. 



26 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

are free and the many slaves, to governments 
v^hich increasingly aim to make all men free by 
guaranteeing to each man participation in the 
governing powder and qualifying him through edu- 
cation for the responsibility with which this par- 
ticipation invests him. Literature and art search 
out all the actions which reenforce man's power 
to participate with his fellows and all the actions 
which, on the contrary, destroy or minimize this 
power, and by presenting both types of action in 
the form of concrete examples illuminate imagi- 
nation with ethical ideals. In brief epitome, the 
principle of history, literature, and art is rational 
freedom, and their revelation is liberty realized in 
and through social combination. But while at one 
in their principle and their revelation, they differ 
in their gift of power and in the form of mental 
energy to which they make preponderant appeal. 
Literature and art allure imagination by a con- 
crete presentation of the beautiful in conduct and 
in life, and confer as their gift of power a sensi- 
tively discriminating taste. History challenges 
the individual to moral choices through concrete 
definition of the form of will as realized in cor- 
porate action, and confers as its guerdon the gift 
of a self -directing conscience.^ 

1 Readers familiar with Psychologic Foundations of Educa- 
tion will recognize that in the past few pages I have closely 
followed its statements. Readers not familiar with this book 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 27 

The gist of the argument presented against the 
theory of concentration is that in so far as this 
theory prevails it attacks both the objective and 
subjective value of every branch of study. In its 
practical application it forces the substitution of 
arbitrary and contingent connections for causal 
relations and attacks literary appreciation by 
using stories as '^ cores of concentration " for all 
sorts of exercises. 

During Alice's sojourn in Wonderland she ven- 
tured to remark that *' the earth takes twenty- 
four hours to revolve on its axis." '^ Talking of 
axes," rejoined the Duchess, '^ chop off her head." 
This experience is a somewhat startling example 
of the dangers incident to the merely accidental 
or external association of ideas. To such fortui- 
tous association we are all by nature prone. To 
deliver us from this sin of unregenerate intellect 
is one chief duty of education. By substituting 
causal for contingent connections science discloses 
to intellect the unity of the world and increases 
the possibility of communion between man and 
man. By deflecting intellect from the search for 
causes, and creating more or less contingent ap- 



and interested in the question of educational values should 
study carefully Chapter XXXIV Psychology of the Course 
of Study in Schools, Elementary, Secondary, and Higher. I 
have omitted all reference to grammar and the studies allied 
to it because they have no direct bearing upon the activities 
of the kindergarten. 



28 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

perceptive masses, concentric instruction, could it 
succeed, would create a bias of mind unfavorable 
to the grasp of the universe as a related whole 
and would defeat the struggle of men toward a 
unitary humanity. 

By substituting sympathetic appreciation of 
rational ideals for native prejudices literature 
contributes even more largely than science toward 
that creation of mankind out of men which is the 
inner spring of all human striving. Nothing so 
isolates one man from another or one race from 
another as different prejudices. These alienating 
and antagonizing prejudices are aborigines of our 
minds. They are opinions formed in the under- 
w^orld of instinct. Some are products of heredity, 
some of environment, and some of individual ex- 
perience. All of them are tinged and many of 
them deeply dyed with emotion. They are defiant 
of coercion and invincible by logic. They are 
tyrants of the mind, and their tyranny can be 
overthrown only as rational ideals, marching in 
the valiant and beautiful forms of literature, cap- 
ture and forever after hold the citadel of phan- 
tasy. When children all over the world listen to 
those nursery rhymes and fairy stories in which 
the elementary traits of the race mind are re- 
vealed; when boyhood all over the world yields 
itself in glad surrender to classic myth and 
Bible story; and when the spirit of youth every- 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 29 

where receives the baptismal regeneration of the 
great world poets, then indeed shall the individ- 
ual soul be enfranchised and all antagonistic 
nations be fused in one jubilant and victorious 
humanity. 

The principle of concentration claims to be 
rooted in the doctrine of apperception as explained 
by Herbart. This explanation has two psycho- 
logic defects, of which the first is the assumed 
primacy of conscious intellect over feeling and 
volition. " With Herbart," says Lange, " apper- 
ception was confined chiefly to such cases in which 
the acquisition of the new is preceded by excita- 
tion of the circle of thought, that is, a contem- 
plative lingering observation, an arching and 
pointing of concepts." ^ Herbart himself affirms 
that " the circle of thought contains the store of 
that which by degrees can mount by the steps of 
interest to desire, then by means of action to voli- 
tion." - This attempt " to derive all psychical 
processes, especially the subjective feelings, im- 
pulses, and desires, from ideas and intellectual 
processes " ^ is repudiated by later psychologists 
and educators, and it is now quite generally ad- 
mitted that ^' the forces which in the act of apper- 

1 Apperception, Lange (Eng. tr.), p. 267. 

2 Science of Education, Herbart. Translation by Henry M. 
and Emmie Felkin, p. 213. 

» Outlines of Psychology, Wundt, p. 13. 



30 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

ceiving awaken and guide the masses of ideas are 
the secret powers of the emotional soul " (Ge- 
mlith).^ With this decision contemporary psy- 
chology reaffirms the insight of Froebel ^' that the 
center, the real foundation, the starting point of 
human development, and thus of the child^s de- 
velopment, is the heart." - In this insight is 
rooted the educational method of Froebel, which 
proceeds from the assumption that in typical facts 
presented originally as typical acts resides the 
apperceiving energy which unifies experience and 
forms character. Goethe tells us that flour can- 
not be sow^n and seed corn ought not to be ground. 
The defect of concentric education is that it 
attempts to sow flour. The merit of the kinder- 
garten, as I hope to show^ hereafter, is that it 
evolves all the values of thought and life from 
the seed corn of the typical deed. 

The second psychologic fallacy embalmed in 
the method of the concentric programme is the 
proposition that ^^ ^ presentations ' (Vorstellungen) 
are the elements of mental life, and their combi- 
nations, permutations, and interactions cause all 

1 Apperception, Lange, p. 268. 

2 Pedagogics of the Kindergarten, p. 42. The German 
original is clearer in its statement "dasz der Mittelpunkt, die 
eigentliche Grundlage, der Ausgangspunkt der Menschlichen 
und so der Kindesbildung das Gemiith mid die Gemiithliche 
sei." — Pddagogik des Kindergartens, p. 33. See Symbolic 
Education, p. 247. 



THE CONCENTRIC PROGRAMME 31 

the rest of the manifold forms of consciousness." ^ 
Concentric instruction is really a form of educa- 
tional atomism. Scientific atomism may emphasize 
either the independence of each atom in the atomic 
infinitude or the processes of composition and de- 
composition through which it essays to explain 
the actual world. In like manner educational 
atomism may put its stress either upon sensations 
as the original elements of mind or upon the asso- 
ciative processes through which sensations are 
supposed to be combined into percepts and per- 
cepts blended in those composite mental photo- 
graphs which are all that psychologic atomism 
discerns in concepts or general ideas. Rousseau 
and Pestalozzi are atomic psychologists and edu- 
cators of the former type.^ Herbart and his dis- 
ciples are atomic psychologists and educators of 
the latter type. '^ The object of synthetical in- 
struction," writes Herbart, " is twofold ; it must 
supply the elements and prepare their combina- 
tion." ^ The idea of relativity is apperceivingly 
active in his mind, whereas it had not attained 
threshold value in the minds of his predecessors. 
Froebel discards psychologic and educational at- 
omism in both its earlier and its later form. He 



» The Science of Education, Herbart, Translated by 
Henry M. and Emmie Felkin. Translators' Preface, p. 33. 
2 See Symbolic Education, Chapter I. 
' Felkin's Translation, as above, p. 159. 



32 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

conceives of mind as an aboriginal energy seeking 
expression in deeds, and through deeds interpret- 
ing both itself and the world. In the structure 
of mind he discovers the key to education, and he 
must always be revered as the originator of that 
higher pedagogy whose initial insight is the deep 
meaning which lies hid in childish play, and 
whose triumphant achievement is a path which, 
issuing from play, makes swift and joyous ascent 
toward a true world view and a conforming life. 



CHAPTEK II 

THE FEOEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 

The Froebelian antithesis to concentric educa- 
tion is vortical education. The point of departure 
for vortical education is the typical fact. What 
thought masses are to the Herbartian, typical 
facts are to the Froebelian, and without clear 
comprehension of what is meant by a typical fact 
it is impossible to understand the practice of the 
historic kindergarten. 

(1.) Let us approach the meaning of a typical 
fact by asking ourselves what we mean by any 
fact. Do we mean a single point of experience 
taken in detachment from the line it begins or 
ends ? If so, we are thinking of something that 
does not exist. Each thing is what it is because 
of its relations to all other things. Therefore, to 
know any object or event apart from its relations 
is not to know it at all. To know" it in some of its 
relations is to grasp it as a relative synthesis. To 
set it in the totality of its relations is to convert 
this partial synthesis into an absolute synthesis. 
We may see a mere point of fact ; we may see an 
4 33 



34 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

arc of fact; we may see a semicircuinference, a 
circle, or a spiral of fact; we may see a vortical 
ascent and expansion of fact; or, finally, we may 
see a spherical totality of fact. 

Thus far we have only discussed ascending defi- 
nitions of a fact, and from our present point of 
view should relegate all adequate apprehension of 
facts to the period of maturity, leaving for child- 
hood those detached unrealities which we know 
as sense objects and isolated events. We should 
hold that children must live in an atomic world 
and should deride the idea of quickening in infant 
minds any prescient sense of the ties by which 
objects are related and events bound together. 
But what if among the objects of sense-perception 
there are some which provoke surmises of rela- 
tions and principles? What if life and literature 
offer types of character which reveal not mere 
points but arcs on the circle of rationality? 
What if the heart of childhood thrills with pro- 
phetic intimations of all master truths? What, 
above all, if the human mind ascends to insight, 
not through fusing many single sensations into 
those apperceptive masses we call sense objects, 
and forming from images of these objects the 
composite pictures we call general ideas, but by 
a series of efiluxes of the mind itself and the im- 
position of its native forms upon the objective 
data of experience? 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 35 

Dwelling in thought upon these possible alter- 
natives, a new pedagogy begins to define itself, 
and the questions emerge whether the most uni- 
versal truths have not always been first discerned 
under the disguise of concrete examples, and 
whether the one great object of early education 
should not be to select and present those visible 
embodiments of creative principles which may be 
approximately classified as typical facts, objects, 
actions, characters, relations, and processes. At 
the heart of each valid synthesis of facts works 
the force which, raying out in all directions, gen- 
erates the spherical whole. A typical fact is one 
which stirs in the prescient imagination at least 
a vague awareness of this generative force. 

(2.) It was through the spur of a typical fact 
that the mind of Darwin was incited to ask the 
question which he answered in his theory of evo- 
lution. The animals of the Galapagos islands 
resemble species found in South America. They 
have been modified through a process of adapta- 
tion to insular conditions. No continental species 
are represented save those which could by some 
means have crossed the intervening sea. Such 
similarities under different conditions, such modi- 
fications and such exclusions constitute in their 
totality a typical fact illustrating very completely 
the general thesis that different species of plants 
and animals have been produced through modifica- 



36 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

tions of a common ancestral stock by adaptation 
to differing environments. This typical fact was 
the lighted match which, falling into a combustible 
mind, produced that great conflagration of intel- 
lect in which the doctrine of a special creation of 
plants and animals was burned to ashes. It also 
kindled that brighter light which made possible 
the vision of nature as an evolutionary ascent of 
being. ^ 

The course of history suggests that the initial 
point of every line of human progress has been 
some typical fact. It was a typical presentation 
of the three great mysteries of life — illness, old 
age, and death — that drove Sakya Muni to those 
years of contemplation whose outcome was the 
great religion of the Orient. It was through a 
typical fact, the Cross of Calvary, that occidental 
humanity received the revelation of a self-sacri- 
ficing God. The falling apple was the immediate 
provocative of Newton's theory of gravitation 
whose issue is a related as opposed to an atomic 
universe, and, as we have seen, the fauna of a 
group of small islands spurred the mind of Dar- 
win to that formidable wrestle with nature, whose 
outcome has been the greatest revolution ever 
wrought in human conceptions of God, man and 

1 Origin of Species, D. Appleton & Co., 1871, p. 362. See 
also Darwin and After Darwin, Romanes, Open Court Pub- 
lishing Co., Chicago, p. 237. 



I 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 37 

the world. Such typical facts are thought- 
points as opposed to thought masses. They bear 
no resemblance, however, to the mathematical ab- 
straction, but are like the germinating point in 
which a vital force begins its process of self -organ- 
izing activity. 

(3.) Typical facts appeal to imagination, and 
through imagination to feeling and will. Froe- 
bel's insistence upon them declares his recognition 
of imagination as the predominant form of men- 
tal activity between the ages of four and six. His 
genius, however, also divined a deeper truth, and 
he perceived that, in view of the young child's 
primary and persistent need for a self-expressive 
activity, typical facts must be presented in the 
guise of typical acts. Seizing, therefore, upon 
instinctive games, he charged them with ideal 
values, and by getting children to play with typ- 
ical objects and represent typical characters, rela- 
tions, and processes, he made the first complete 
educational conquest of that realm of phantasy in 
which all young souls dwell. His creative thought 
may be summed up in a very few sentences. Since 
children spend their lives in a waking dream, edu- 
cation must so influence them that their dreams 
shall be prophecies of truth. Since their waking 
dream is an active drama, the form through which 
prevenient imagination must seize upon truth is 
the typical deed. What a child does he tends to 



38 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

behold. What he plays he is, he tends to become. 
Through creating in play an ideal world he will 
be prepared for an ideal interpretation of the 
actual world. Representing in play an ideal self, 
he will be incited to that self-surrender and self- 
conquest whose goal is self-fulfillment. 

As its name implies and its practice suggests, 
the concentric programme is intent upon forming 
in the mind a circle of thought. In discussing 
this programme I pointed out that the psychology 
it presupposes makes interest, desire, and volition 
derivative from conscious thought. The psychol- 
ogy implied in the traditional procedure of the 
kindergarten traces the pedigree of conscious 
thought back to interest and desire, expressing 
themselves in act and becoming aware of them- 
selves through seeing their image in deeds. Froe- 
beFs insistent plea is that within typical deeds 
resides the apperceiving energy which will direct 
and unify thought. His only core of unity is the 
child himself conceived as self-creative, and there- 
fore as possessing germinal tendencies toward all 
the values of adult life which are in reality ap- 
proximate definitions of self-activity. The method 
of the kindergarten which is rooted in this con- 
ception of the child may be most briefly described 
as an attempt to aid these native tendencies to find 
their outlet in ascending spirals of expression, 
which upon each successively attained plane of de- 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 39 

velopment merge in a larger spherical unity of 
thought, feeling, and will. 

(4.) The typical facts, or, as I may now amend 
my statement, the typical acts of the kindergarten, 
include varied play with typical objects and varied 
representation of typical characters, relationships, 
and processes. The greater number of criticisms 
made against the kindergarten have been leveled 
at the gifts or typical objects and have owed their 
sting to two popular misconceptions. It has been 
supposed that the gifts were intended to supply 
material for object lessons, and it has been tacitly 
or explicitly assumed that the purpose of these 
object lessons was to assist children to arrive at 
certain general concepts of form through the 
processes of comparison, abstraction, and general- 
ization. 

Most of the arguments urged against the gifts 
before the advent of the free-play heresy may be 
condensed into the statement that being geomet- 
ric solids and planes they divert the tendency of 
the mind to compare concrete things with each 
other, and prompt rather the comparison of type 
forms with individuals, which is unnatural. It 
is said, for example, that a child should compare 
a plum and an apple, or an apple and an orange, 
and not either of these fruits with a perfect sphere. 
The rejoinder is apt, that since the orange and 
apple resemble each other because both resemble 



40 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

a sphere, the very first comparison between them 
must either elicit the typical form or float in the 
vague. But all conscious comparison between an 
orange and an apple or between either fruit and 
a sphere is foreign to children four and five years 
old^ and the kindergarten has no mandate to call 
into premature exercise any form of mental ac- 
tivity. The spheres of the kindergarten are balls 
which children roll, bounce, toss, catch, whirl, and 
spin ; the cubes are blocks with which they build ; 
the squares, triangles, sticks, and rings are not 
geometric polygons and lines, but materials for 
making pictures. In a word all these type forms 
are primarily playthings, and Froebel's simple 
contention is that playing with them concentrates 
attention on them and thereby makes them pre- 
potent in the selection and organization of ex- 
perience. The selective interest of a baby brought 
up by hand singles out bottles from among all 
the objects of nature and art and devotes to them 
his absorbed attention. This is because bottles 
are intimately connected with his most appealing 
and engrossing experience. For precisely the 
same reason the kindergarten child whose balls 
and blocks are connected with plays which have 
given him keen enjoyment singles out of the con- 
fusion of sense presentation objects allied to these 
typical forms. And since, unlike bottles, geomet- 
ric archetypes are really the keys to all form, the 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 41 

direction of attention to them means a valid clas- 
sification of primary elements of experience. 

It is a superficial grasp of Froebel's purpose in 
making " the archetypes of nature the playthings 
of the child " to suppose that what he expected 
from their use was merely that children should see 
all around them spheres, cubes, cylinders, pyra- 
mids, and prisms. This would be analogous to the 
supposition that we learn the alphabet in order to 
reduce all the sentences and words of books to 
their component letters. The truth is that pre- 
cisely as w^e learn the phonetic alphabet, in order 
to get at the sense of what is written in books, so 
we learn the alphabet of form, in order to get at 
the sense of what is written in the great book of 
nature, and in order to write correctly, and if it 
may be with beauty, the language of the graphic 
pictorial and plastic arts. 

(5.) It is a well-known fact that the first search 
for an alphabet of sense-perception was made by 
Pestalozzi, and that its outcome was his famous 
doctrine of form, number, and language. Froebel 
perceived that the alphabet offered by Pestalozzi 
would not enable children to spell out all the words 
in sense-perception, and he has provided in the 
kindergarten gifts, occupations and games more 
or less satisfactory alphabets of savor, odor, mus- 
cular movement, color, and musical sound. Rec- 
ognizing, however, that only through form can 



42 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

we adequately classify different kinds of objects, 
and adequately distinguish between objects of the 
same kind, he placed the accent of the kinder- 
garten gifts upon an alphabet of form which is 
likewise an alphabet of size and number. " Spe- 
cific life,'' he writes, ^^ shows itself in specific 
structures conditioned by form and size. Form 
again, manifests its nature in the systematic ar- 
rangement or articulation of its component parts ; 
size shows itself in its divisions. Both size and 
form have multiplicity and divisibility, hence 
both imply and depend upon number." ^ 

The archetypes of form have meanings of their 
own which we must learn to translate if we would 
understand what nature is trying to say to us. 
And as we learn to understand a foreign language 
through practice in speaking it, so we learn to 
translate the language of form through its experi- 
mental and creative use. Will not children who 
have rolled balls and cylinders on level and in- 
clined planes, who have tipped cubes and made 
them slide, and who have whirled and spun 
spheres, cubes, cylinders, and cones be prepared 
for appreciation of those relations between form 
and motion which are fundamental facts of 
physics ? Will not the axial divisions of spheres, 
cubes, cylinders, and cones made familiar through 
the building gifts, peas-work, and modeling, pre- 

Pedagogics of the Kindergarten, p. 199, 



THE FROEBELIAx\ ANTITHESIS 43 

pare for a more intelligent grasp of crystalline 
forms ? Will not the kindergarten child enter 
more sympathetically than other children into 
nature's reason for giving flowers cylindrical 
stems and animals cylindrical legs? Will he 
not better appreciate " the appropriateness of 
cylindric forms for carriers of food and work- 
ing supplies, for roots of trees and veins of ani- 
mals, for drinking and breathing tubes through 
out the animal and vegetable Avorld ? " ^ Will not 
the varied exercises throwing into relief the free- 
dom of the sphere from bristling edges and prick- 
ing corners, lead nascent thought to seal with intel- 
ligent approval nature's choice of spheroidal forms 
for the heads of men and animals, and for fruits, 
vegetables, flowers, and seed ? Will not the twirl- 
ing plays wherein all forms lose their angles and 
approximate to spheres give some clew to the ac- 
tivities through which pebbles are rounded and 
worlds shaped ? In short, will not wisely directed 
play with archetypal forms gently lead little 
neophytes of thought out of the realm of na- 
ture's effects into the realm of her causative 
processes ? 

(6.) Passing from the scientific to the aesthetic 
interpretation of the world, let us remind our- 
selves that ideal art is never an external copy of 

» The Study of Type Forms and Its Value in Education, 
John S. Clark, Prang Educational Co, 



44 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

nature, but a reaction of the mind against nature. 
It is an attempt to seize nature's living energies 
rather than their dead results, and its advance is 
marked by increasing ability to express generic 
ideals. It has been said that " the superiority 
of Japanese paintings of flowers is due to a per- 
fect memory of certain flower shapes instantane- 
ously flung upon paper and showing not the rec- 
ollection of any individual blossom, but the perfect 
realization of a general law of form expression, 
perfectly mastered with all its moods, tenses, 
and inflections." ^ The Japanese artist has en- 
tered into nature's creative act, and through 
knowledge of and sympathy with certain generic 
forms of expression he produces individual ex- 
amples of a common type superior to the individu- 
al examples of nature herself. Astir within him 
is the ideal toward which the Iris or Chrysanthe- 
mum or Lotus energy in nature aims, and there- 
fore he is able to fling freely upon paper original 
images of this ideal. In like manner the eye of 
ancient Greece was fixed not upon the imperfect 
achievements, but upon the ideal striving of the 
man-making energy, and through her interior 
vision she was able to reveal to dwarfed and dis- 
torted humanity the grandeur and beauty to 
which it might dare aspire. Sublime Zeus and 
gracious Aphrodite, statues of heroic Ares and 

» Out of the East, Lafcadio Hearn, p. 119. 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 45 

chaste Artemis defined great arcs on the circle of 
the ideal human and made men aware how divine 
is that spirit which is forever seeking incarnation 
in human form. In brief, the ideal reproduction 
of nature implies assimilation of various forms 
of creative energy. 

Refusing to copy nature's products the artist 
seeks communion with her spirit and participa- 
tion in her generative processes. Like the scien- 
tist he withdraws from the visible realm of effects 
into the invisible realm of causes. He will not 
be fettered by nature's defective embodiment of 
her ideals, but recreating these ideals in his own 
soul he gains powder to recreate them in the world, 
and thus makes himself nature's highest instru- 
ment and her most complete interpreter. He 
turns from visible light to behold " the light that 
never was on sea or shore." He looks away from 
the rose ^' which his eye externally doth see," to 
the archetypal rose which from all eternity ^' has 
blossomed in the mind of God," and declining 
to recognize in men as they are the ideal of 
manhood, he defines that ideal itself by the in- 
clusion in a single form of many scattered excel- 
lences, and by accentuating the excellences sep- 
arately discerned. 

(7.) Manifestly, the selection of scattered ex- 
cellences implies a criterion of taste. All peoples 
have some standard in accordance with which 



46 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

they choose types of beauty, and if the art of 
Greece surpasses that of other nations, it must 
be because of the superior truth of her selective 
idea. Greece conceived both gods and men as free 
beings, or original sources of self-activity. To 
her mind self-activity was alike the final cause 
and ultimate goal of life, and therefore the visible 
expression of freedom, whether in the resilient 
poise of sitting figures, in the unhasting and un- 
impeded energy of moving figures, or in that 
serenity of expression which is the outward sign 
of inner collectedness, and self-mastery w^as to her 
consciousness beautiful. Defining truth as self- 
activity she beheld " in the shining of self -activ- 
ity '' the ^' splendor of the true." Insight into 
the heart of Greece inspires the words which 
Swinburne, speaking in her name, addresses to 
Mother Nature in his Litany of the Nations: 

I am she that made thee lovely with my beauty 

From north to south, 
Mine the fairest lips took first the fire of duty 

From thine own mouth. 
Mine the fairest eyes sought first thy laws and knew 
them 

Truths undefiled; 
Mine the fairest hands took freedom first into them 

A weanling child. 

The " subordination of reality to the ideal " is 
characteristic of all high expression of the human 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 47 

spirit. Literature and art ^^ translate the inner 
meanings of nature and human life." Literature 
translates these meanings through words; art 
translates them through forms. Literature must 
seize upon the word and art upon the form or line 
that expresses each shade of meaning with the 
greatest clarity, precision, comprehensiveness, 
and sympathetic appeal. Understanding that the 
distinctive feature of ideal art is the adequate 
representation of generic types, we are able to de- 
fine another value of play with type forms. It 
has long been admitted that since the more specific 
forms of nature are all allied to geometric arche- 
types, their characteristic marks will be more 
readily seized when these archetypes are known. 
As Mr. Clark puts it in his valuable monograph 
on The Study of Type Forms, '^ In sketching 
from nature unaided by a study of the types, 
there is almost invariably an obliviousness to the 
proportion of surfaces and lines and an insensi- 
bility to differences in the essential character of 
circular, elliptical, or oval curves. Therefore, con- 
crete objects are falsely represented." When to 
such defect of observation we add defect of feel- 
ing or failure to appreciate the appeal of forms to 
sensibility the ideal interpretation of nature be- 
comes impossible, and art reduces itself to mere 
mechanical copy of her external aspect. Speak- 
ing of emotional analogies in relation to form 



48 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

Wolfflin says : " A line composed of short, deli- 
cate curves is commonly called tremulous, while 
one with wider and shallower vibrations indicates 
dull humming or buzzing. A zigzag rustles and 
splashes like falling water, and when very pointed 
sounds shrill like a whistle. The straight line is 
quite still ; in architecture it suggests the " quiet 
simplicity of the antique.'' ^ All kinds of forms, 
the rectangular, the spherical, the cylindrical, the 
ovoidal — all kinds of lines, vertical, horizontal, 
oblique, circular, elliptical, spiral, vortical — are 
instinct with purpose and charged with emotion. 
The artist must enter into their purpose and re- 
spond to their emotional suggestion if he aspires 
to interpret nature's energies instead of being 
fettered and bound by nature's products. With- 
out knowledge of archetypal forms he cannot see 
nature correctly. Without feeling for archetypal 
forms he cannot interpret nature sympathetically. 
Without using archetypal forms and lines crea- 
tively he cannot attain to true knowledge or sym- 
pathetic appreciation of them, for man knows 
only what he does, and feels only what he ex- 
presses. It would seem, therefore, indisputable 
that free sport with archetypal forms and lines 
must be the terminus ah quo of that ideal repro- 
duction of nature which " plays with convention- 
alized form and subordinates reality to it." 
» Cited by Karl Groos in Play of Man, p. 65. 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 49 

(8.) With this insight we return once more to 
the procreant idea of the kindergarten. The child 
can penetrate the purpose and respond to the emo- 
tional suggestion of forms only as he uses them 
creatively. His play stirs within him some dim 
prescience of the repose of the straight line, the 
self-fulfillment of the circular curve, the aspira- 
tion of the spiral, the exhilaration of vortical as- 
cent and expansion. Again, through these special 
forms of creative activity his attention will he di- 
rected to the expression of analogous activities in 
nature and some suspicion of their purpose will 
be quickened within him. In brief, what a child 
does has a determining reaction upon what he 
thinks and feels. What he thinks and feels de- 
termines his selective interest, and his selective 
interest determines which among the many in- 
fluences streaming toward him shall be welcomed 
by his mind and become the materials out of 
which he builds his world. 

To assimilate the generic energies of nature 
and give them more perfect expression is a 
transcendent achievement. By itself, however, 
this achievement is not art. The distinctive 
principle of art is order, and under this general 
idea are included " rhythm, measure, proportion, 
and all those modes of arrangement used by artists 
which may be summarized as composition." ^ 

1 The Fine Arts, G. Baldwin Brown, p. 10. 
5 



50 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

This principle of order is man's free gift, the ad- 
dition of something in himself to what he receives 
from nature. '' Animals run and caper ; man 
regulates the run and caper by the principle of 
order and creates the dance. Birds ' utter suc- 
cessive notes pleasing to the ear/ man adds the 
element of ordered time and creates music. 
Apes delight in imitative gesture, man rises from 
mere imitation to the mimic dance and thence to 
the drama. Many animals ^ delight in color and 
glitter and enjoy bright and tinted objects.' Man 
alone spaces objects at intervals and thus creates 
decorative art. Animals show constructive abil- 
ity and build not only for purposes of utility 
but from motives of pleasure and display. Man 
seeks to embody in his constructions the prin- 
ciples of proportion, and thus creates architectural 
beauty." ^ If to-day 

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 
As the best gem upon her zone, 

it is because man has been able to create a beauty 
for which nature furnishes no original. It is true 
that Mr. Herbert Spencer believes animal shapes 
may have suggested the general form of Greek 
temples. The suggestion seems forced, but even 

» These illustrations are condensed from the book already 
referred to, The Fine Arts, G. Baldwin Brown. See pp. 1-18. 
I put the whole passage in quotations because the idea is 
borrowed even where the words are changed. 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 51 

granting it validity, it is a far cry from the 
poodle to the Parthenon. Whatever indeed may 
have been the original suggestion of nature, it had 
been long outgrown when the Acropolis was 
crowned with this miracle of architectural gran- 
deur and loveliness. The artist who conceived 
this perfect temple was no copyist of nature, but 
a higher incarnation of natura naturans, and 
the consummate beauty which he called into being 
was the outcome '' of a long historic striving after 
proportion, after a satisfactory division of a whole 
into parts, after a rhythmical interchange of form 
and void.'' ^ 

(9.) In order to appreciate great works of art, 
as well as in order to become in any degree an 
artist himself, the individual must not only know 
theoretically the principles governing composi- 
tion, but must have that spontaneous emotional 
accord with them which we call good taste. Such 
spontaneity of sympathetic comprehension is best 
achieved by practice in composing. Children 
should therefore be led to create beauty of pro- 
portion and since proportion inheres in and is 
most simply created with geometric elements, 
practice in the gTouping and spacing of different 
kinds of lines and in the symmetric cutting of dif- 
ferent polygons would seem to be the true meth- 
od of initiation into the arts of space. 
» The Fine Arts, p. 16. 



52 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

If this conclusion be accepted it will become 
evident that play with type forms has a second ar- 
tistic value. It not only aids the mind to dis- 
cern those generic energies whose more perfect 
expression creates the substance of art, but it also 
hastens the discovery of those principles of 
rhythm, measure, and proportion which create the 
form of art, and which, proceeding as they do 
from the spirit of man, reveal the structure of in- 
telligence.^ 

(10.) Thus far we have considered the kinder- 
garten gifts only in their more obvious aspect as 
a series of typical objects through whose creative 
use the child learns to spell out the primary mean- 
ings of form and to appreciate the elements of 
artistic order. That Froebel expected other re- 
sults from the plays he suggests with these typi- 
cal objects is evident from his own insistent and 
reiterated statements of his aims and purposes. 
The following passages suggest a point of view 
which the perusal of his books will abundantly 
confirm : 

I have not only forms for the child's eyes which 
are to make him acquainted with the outward world 

» See Psychologic Foundations of Education, pp. 352-59. 
I have omitted all reference to the value of play with tj^e 
forms as related to Manual Training and Constructive In- 
dustry because this value has been so often pointed out. See 
the monograph already referred to, The Study of Type Forms 
and Its Value in Education, pp. 21-23. 



J 



I 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 53 

which surrounds him; I have symbols which unlock 
his soul for the thought or spirit which is innate in 
everything that has come out of God's creative mind. 
If the ripened mind is to know this thought, its em- 
bodied image must make an impression on the yet un- 
conscious soul of the child and leave behind it forms 
which can serve as analogies to the intellectual order- 
ing of things/ . . . 

We must render perceptible to the child the unity of 
the world, absolute existence, the world within, and these 
in an earthly childlike fashion. . . . Such things we 
have to give to children through the system of ordered 
games and occupations which I have ^reated.^ . . . 

God clothed His own image in a mass of clay and 
was not ashamed of His creation; neither will I be 
ashamed to set forth in little blocks of wood my ideas 
upon the nature of man.' 

The kindergartner who has achieved intimacy 
with Froebel's thought is constantly surprised that 
his critics so rarely attack him in what is either 
his most indefensible or his most impregnable 
point. This point of danger is defiantly exposed 
in the sentences quoted. What must any sane 
person think of an effort to render perceptible not 
only the unity of the world, but absolute exist- 
ence? And is not any educator clearly daft who 
attempts to set forth in little blocks of wood his 
ideas upon the nature of man? 

> Reminiscences of Froebel, pp. 210-11. 
2 Froebel's Letters, Michaelis-Moore , p. 57, 
a Ibid., p. 142. 



54 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

Waiving the question of Froebel's possible in- 
sanity, let us give our attention to the typical ex- 
ercises through which he tries to realize the aim 
so boldly declared. These exercises are of three 
kinds. In the first kind given wholes are resolved 
into their component parts and from these com- 
ponent parts is reconstructed the original whole. 
The second kind of exercise is know^n in the kin- 
dergarten as a sequence. In sequences each sep- 
arate figure is developed from its immediate pred- 
ecessor and from it in turn is evolved its imme- 
diate successor, so that the series, when complete, 
shows a linkage of related forms. In the third 
kind of exercise there is not only a serial evolu- 
tion, but an evolution which arises from a con- 
scious attempt to mediate given extremes. These 
three types of exercise are carried out in every 
Froebelian kindergarten, and their merit is ap- 
proved by sixty years of experience. Their pri- 
mary object is to overcome gently the fragmen- 
tariness and discontinuity of childish thought. 
The child who takes apart and puts together must 
give his attention to w^hat he is doing, and for the 
few minutes in which he is thus busily engaged 
he ceases to be the victim of chance incitement. 
The child w^ho develops one form from another is 
beginning to live in little arcs of thought, instead 
of mere detached points of thought. The child 
who connects antitheses through a mediatorial 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 55 

series is beginning to work for and with a con- 
scious purpose. In short, through organizing 
evolutionary and mediatorial activities self-active 
intelligence begins to organize, evolve, and me- 
diate itself. 

By themselves alone the values indicated justi- 
fy the exercises of which they are the result. 
These exercises have, however, a second value, 
which, while logically derivative from, is psycho- 
logically equal to those already considered. 
Through actively resolving wholes into parts and 
parts into wholes, the child creates in himself a 
selective interest which causes him to respond with 
quickened attention to the relations of parts and 
wholes in the external world. In like manner in- 
terest in evolutionary processes is aroused by 
creating sequences, and the canceling of antithe- 
ses through mediatorial forms leads to the sin- 
gling out of analogous processes in the complex 
of experience, and induces a bias of mind favor- 
able to the interpretation of all presented antith- 
eses as mere termini of, or poles of, relations. 
There is no mystery in the method by which these 
results are reached. He who connects becomes 
connected and looks for connections. He who de- 
velops becomes developing and looks for develop- 
ments. He who transforms apparently excluding 
antitheses into the relative termini of an including 
process becomes in so far a bridge builder, and 



56 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

thereby a discerner of the truth that there are 
no bridgeless chasms. Evidently we have simply 
arrived once more at the generative thought so 
often expressed in this chapter. What we do we 
become. What we become we continue to do, 
and through what we do and become we interpret 
the powers not ourselves with which we come in 
contact. 

(11.) I anticipate a question. Granting that 
acts of organizing will direct attention to organic 
wholes; that evolutionary exercises will awaken 
interest in evolutionary processes; and that the 
active mediation of antitheses will create a ten- 
dency to single out of the complex of experience 
mediatorial activities, what is the value of arous- 
ing these special forms of selective interest? The 
answer to this question admits us to the citadel 
of Froebel's thought. The goal of education is 
a true world-view and a conforming life. The 
key to a true world-view is the nature of mind. 
Mind is a generic and, therefore, self-creating 
energy. It is what it does, it does what it is, 
and it is aware of that active doing which is its 
being. Thought, feeling, and will are not inde- 
pendent faculties but related aspects of its in- 
divisible energy. A completely realized mind 
must have completely objectified itself, and com- 
pletely realized itself in this self -objectifying act. 
Every thought that mind can think must have 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 57 

uttered itself in a creative deed ; the relations and 
processes of thought, no less than its detached 
distinctions must have been objectified; finally, 
the aboriginal self-determining energy must have 
duplicated itself as well as objectified its distinc- 
tions, relations, and processes. This completely 
self -objectified and self-duplicated mind is God. 
The cosmos is the boundless volume of His objecti- 
fied ideas. The relations and processes of nature 
correspond to the relations and processes of eter- 
nal intellect. The evolutionary ascent of nature 
is the revealed path of an eternally realized ascent 
of mind. Man is the crown of nature, because 
in him is incarnate not God's thought, but 
His thinking, not God's deeds, but His doing or 
willing, not divine self-determinations, but divine 
self-determining. In virtue of this self-determin- 
ing energy man is a free being; in virtue of the 
fact that self-determining energy is generic en- 
ergy, he is intrinsically a social being, and must 
make himself actually what he is ideally through 
the corporate progress of history, and through 
those ascending forms of social organization 
which we know as the hierarchy of human insti- 
tutions. In brief, nature is the becoming of 
mind; man is self-realizing mind; God is eter- 
nally self-realized mind. Hence, to know the 
structure of mind would be to know God, nature, 
and man, and to live in conscious and free con- 



58 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

formity with the structure of mind would be to 
fulfil with joy the most compelling demands of 
the categorical imperative. 

The path of history is a devious and toilsome 
one, because on their march toward a hidden 
summit men are forever losing their way. The 
path of education, as broken by Froebel, is one 
of rapid and joyous ascent, because it issues from 
the deepest impulses of the human spirit and aims 
consciously at their realization. In his own mind 
the little child carries the key to nature, man, and 
God. Because mind is analytic, synthetic, evolu- 
tionary, self-antithetic, and self-duplicating it 
rejoices to do the smallest deeds which are cast 
into these forms. Through doing such deeds se- 
lective interest is awakened in the correspondent 
deeds of nature, and imagination illumined with 
a foregleam of their meaning. Through the half- 
blind tendencies it discerns within itself, emer- 
gent intellect, interprets the wholly blind tenden- 
cies of nature and glances toward an absolute 
mind in whom all these blind tendencies exist as 
completely realized ideals. The logic of Christ 
which, from the imperfect love of man, argued 
the perfect love of God, and beheld adumbrations 
of this love in the phenomena of nature is ampli- 
fied in a method of education which from every 
typical activity of the human spirit argues an 
analogous but transcendent activity in the Divine 



i 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 59 

First Principle, and beholds in nature its obscure 
oracle and adumbration. 

(12.) The prime article of Froebel's educa- 
tional creed is that the seeds of every thought it 
will ever be worth while to think, every deed it 
will ever be worth while to do, and every sentiment 
it will ever be worth while to feel are indigenous 
to the soil of the mind, and that the chief duty 
of early education is to abet their native tendency 
toward development, by inciting typical acts 
which will issue in typical mental attitudes. 
This is his theory of vortical as opposed to con- 
centric education, and the final reason for his 
emphasis upon typical acts as contrasted with 
thought-masses. His educational aim is stated 
by himself with admirable clarity in the follow- 
ing letter to an intimate friend: 

Often and often, so you say, passages which I 
read in the Sunday Journal* evoke from the depths 
of my inner consciousness like thoughts which I have 
originated for myself, and like experiences which I 
have gone through in my own life until I grow quite 
astonished and puzzled. What you thus confide to me 
relates to one part of the sweetest, best, and purest 
fruit of my life, one part, namely, of what I mean to 
do or have already accomplished (through my chil- 
dren's games and occupations) toward clearing a 
pathway through the tangles of human life. I am en- 
deavoring to bring man through the knowledge of his 

> Froebel's Educational Organ. 



60 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

own inner feeling^s and the experiences of his own 
life to a forefeeling, a perception, and, finally, to a 
clear consciousness of this great fact, that for all the 
deepest conceptions which govern life there exist uni- 
versally active life experiences which are found to be 
repeated in the case of every man who examines the 
development of his own career with careful scrutiny 
and endeavors to bring himself to a consciousness of 
its meaning/ 

Some years ago in an attempted contrast be- 
tween traditional methods and the method of 
Froebel I made the following statement : " Our 
too common defect is that we try to pour into 
the child knowledge he is not prepared to receive, 
and in which he feels no interest. Hence our 
teaching floats in the air unattached by cords of 
experience to the life of the child, ^ow Froebel 
is the evolutionist among educators. He will 
plant no full-grown oak of thought. He will not 
even plant a sapling. He insists upon the acorn, 
and even this shall be planted only in a soil pre- 
pared for its reception by fertilizing experiences." 
I repeat this statement in order to comment upon 
its insufiiciency, for as I have been trying to 
make clear, the final truth is that Froebel will 
not plant at all, but that his aim is to nourish 
self-germinating seeds of thought, feeling, and 

» Froebel's Letters as above cited, pp. 96-97. 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 61 

will through abetting the child's native impulse 
toward varied forms of creative activity. 

Let us learn a new lesson from the lily of the 
field. Hidden deep in the earth is the bulb where 
life sleeps. Warmed by the sunshine, fed by 
spring showers this life stirs, swells, mounts, and 
blossoms into a beauty greater than that of the 
king in his glory. Life was in the bulb. What 
it needed was heat, moisture, and light. When 
the inner impulse to grow was awakened this life 
reached out eagerly for all the food it could ap- 
propriate from earth and air, to build into a body 
the ideal stirring within it. So is it with the 
mind. Latent in it are creative energies. It 
wants to create itself. It wants to recreate the 
world. Quicken these energies and mind itself 
will reach out for knowledge as the material 
through which alone it can realize its own deepest 
impulses. 

Broadly speaking, the Froebelian gifts and oc- 
cupations relate to the theoretic and practical mas- 
tery of nature, and play wath them admits chil- 
dren to the outer courts of the two great temples 
of science and art. Passing from the gifts and 
occupations to the dramatic songs and games, we 
enter a new realm, and play takes on a character 
which prepares for the humanities, as contradis- 
tinguished from the sciences and arts, by begin- 
ning the revelation of social or ideal selfhood. 



62 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

From time immemorial attempts have been made 
to capture the imagination of childhood through 
stories wherein the great ideals of human life 
were presented in the form of concrete examples. 
For many ages the same ideals have been illus- 
trated in pictures. It remained for Froebel to 
induce the child to present these ideals to him- 
self, and he accomplished this signal achievement 
through that unerring intuition of genius which 
enabled him to divine the relation between the 
strongest impulses of childhood and the supreme 
values of human life. 

In their native play children are forever seek- 
ing to interpret human deeds, characters, and 
relationships by reproducing them. Since, how- 
ever, much of the environing life which they re- 
produce is not truly human, and since they have 
no touchstone by which to test the alloy of experi- 
ence, imitative play misses its aim and darkens 
instead of illuminating imagination. In the kin- 
dergarten games, on the contrary, children hold 
up before themselves the image of an ideal world 
and an ideal self, and thus make themselves aware 
of the difference between what is and what ought 
to be. Through this discovery of the ideal, con- 
science is generated, and a short cut is made to 
that higher plane of consciousness upon which 
the mind becomes capable of self-direction, self- 
development, and self-conquest. 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 63 

(13.) In order to avoid possible misconception, 
it is necessary to define what is meant by an ideal 
self and an ideal world. The ideal is the histor- 
ically unrealized, but it is never the unreal. 
Rather is it the one great reality through whose 
power the unreal is forever overcome. Since the 
dawn of history the march of man has been in 
a definite direction. The path along which hu- 
manity moves goes somewhere. Doubtless it is 
one of those winding paths through which alone, 
as Goethe reminds us, steep summits can be ap- 
proached, but it has a summit which through all 
its twists and turns it is forever nearing. Sur- 
veying this path from its beginning to its present 
end we become aware of its direction and its goal. 
That goal is what is really meant by the ideal. 
!N^ever completely realized in any single human 
life, nor in any mundane sphere, it is, neverthe- 
less, the incentive of all individual and collective 
endeavor. Its approximate realization in indi- 
viduals creates heroes and saints. Its self-ap- 
proximating energy working through corporate 
humanity creates higher civilizations. Mr. Fiske 
has said ^' that a community of intelligent beings 
living in free obedience to a perfect moral law 
is the goal toward which ever since our solar sys- 
tem was a patch of nebulous vapor the cosmic 
process has aimed." Completing his statement 
with the afiirmation that this blessed community 



64 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

is not only the goal of evolution but its archetype, 
we may define the ideal as the throb of eternal 
reality in the heart of all that is vanishing and 
unreal. 

With the conception of a community of perfect 
beings as both archetype and goal of the cosmic 
process, we begin to understand that human in- 
stitutions are the agencies through which man- 
kind is created out of men. Between mere natural 
man and the object of his brutal lust the ideal 
of the family intervenes with the amenities of 
courtship and betrothal, the solemnity of marriage 
vows, and the cumulative moral sense of freely 
assume'd responsibility. Between man and the 
animal greed which snatches at food and beats 
and slays all rival snatchers, civil society inter- 
venes with the complementary ideals of specific 
vocation and reciprocal service. Between the 
spirit of man and bestial revenge the state inter- 
venes with the majesty of law and the panoply of 
justice. Between man and the pitiful cowardice 
born of immemorial struggle with wild beasts 
and wilder elements the church intervenes with 
authoritative declaration that since God is on the 
side of His creatures, the least and lowest has no 
cause to tremble. Thus redeeming man from 
lust, greed, revenge, and fear, human institutions 
transform the victim of instinct into the freeman 
of the Spirit. 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 65 

In so far as civilization prevails over savagism, 
spiritual humanity receives into its encircling 
arms the immature, the feeble, nay, even the bru- 
tal individual, and begins the work of his deliv- 
erance. Come unto me, whispers the family, and 
learn to trust and to love. Come unto me, calls 
civil society, and learn to serve and be served. 
Come unto me, commands the state, and learn 
the beauty of law and the glory of organized lib- 
erty. Come unto me, sings the church, and learn 
how to hasten the glad time, the brave time, the 
free time when neither shall any man fear him- 
self nor cause another to fear. And now in these 
latter days the school, youngest of great institu- 
tions, adds its urgent and touching appeal. Come 
Unto me, all ye who are ignorant, and be enlight- 
ened. Come unto me, all who are feeble, and wax 
in strength. Come, learn of the labors wrought 
and the agony endured for your sake by that great 
toiler and sufferer, humanity, as he bore the yoke 
and wrestled with the riddle of the centuries. 
Kot for the few he fought and bled and conquered. 
For all was his strength spent and his blood 
poured. Come learn to see with his far-piercing 
eyes; learn to labor with his disciplined strength. 
Then shall you, too, join the victorious march of 
man toward the promised land of freedom and 
of love — then shall you become even now a mem- 
ber of that blessed commimity which religion por- 



66 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

trays mystically in her New Jerusalem; which 
St. Augustine lifts before the eyes of a despair- 
ing and vanishing world in his City of God; 
which Dante celebrates as the consummate blos- 
som of creation in his great white rose of Para- 
dise; of whose animating spirit, Goethe sings in 
his mystic chorus, and which enlightened science 
increasingly recognizes as the goal toward which 
from the beginning the cosmic process has aimed. 

Those who have ^^ among least things an under 
sense of greatest/' will not sneer at Froebel because 
he dares to break a path which, issuing from the 
plays of childhood, mounts toward the Holy City. 
It is no disgrace to gravitation that while swing- 
ing the planets it rules the apple's fall, and Eter- 
nal Love is not less sublime because while throned 
in the majesty of universal dominion it stoops 
in the lowly form of matter to be the servant of 
all. If these things be true, must we not approve 
rroebeFs effort to get little children to play the 
ideals of life, in order that they may the more 
inwardly appreciate them and applaud him for 
straightening and thereby shortening the path of 
history ? 

(14.) The merit of the kindergarten games will 
be more clearly discerned if we pause to define 
accurately the meaning of typical characters. A 
typical character is the concrete embodiment of 
some generic or creative aspect of human nature or 



J 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 67 

of some native passion which collides with generic 
selfhood. Typical characters may be of all degrees 
of complexity. The three men of Gotham who 
went to sea in a bowl are typical characters of an 
elementary kind, because they illustrate that all 
too common rashness w^hich must bring disaster. 
Hamlet is a complex typical character exemplify- 
ing the collapse of purpose under a strain dispro- 
portionate to native strength. The characters rep- 
resented in kindergarten games must have three 
marks. They must be typical, elementary, and 
ideal. Children should not waste time dramatiz-. 
ing the merely capricious. They should not rep- 
resent elementary types of evil. They should 
not represent complex types of either good or 
evil. 

The duties of life arise out of its relationships, 
and the doing of duty creates ideal types of char- 
acter. The good man is an affectionate son, a 
kind brother, a faithful husband, a protecting and 
tender father, a stanch friend, and a genial com- 
rade. He is also an industrious member of the 
economic organization and a grateful recipient of 
its lavish bounty. He is a patriot ready to re- 
spond to the call of his country. He feels the 
appeal of a common humanity and is prompt 
to help the needy and succor the weak. He 
lives in sympathetic touch with the invisible 
source of life, and through the two great acts 



68 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

of religion, worship, and sacrifice, perpetually 
renews the tie which binds him to the heavenly 
powers. 

In view of this close connection between rela- 
tionships, duties, and character, it is evident that 
if we desire to reveal the ideal to children, or 
better, if we wish to help them discover it for 
themselves, we should incite them to play that 
they are kind fathers, tender mothers, obedient 
sons and daughters, affectionate brothers and sis- 
ters, busy members of the working world, sol- 
diers marching in defense of flag and fatherland, 
and worshipers old and young answering the call 
of the solemn bell and wending their way to the 
mysterious building whose spire, like a great fin- 
ger, points to the sky. So obvious, indeed, is this 
method of revealing the ideal that it was instinc- 
tively adopted by unlearned peasant mothers in 
ages beyond the reach of our chronology. The 
kindergarten simply does with more conscious in- 
tent and clearer vision what maternal love has 
always tried to do. 

(15.) In dramatizing elementary types of char- 
acter children necessarily portray primal rela- 
tions, but in addition to such incidental sugges- 
tion of social wholes the kindergarten offers a 
number of games into which the portrayal of char- 
acter does not enter, and whose exclusive accent 
is placed upon the tie of fellowship. To this class 



j 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 69 

of plays belong all the games calling for reciproc- 
ity between the child in the center of the circle 
and those forming the ring; the breaking up of 
larger into smaller rings; the wreath and star 
games; the wandering and marching games; the 
family games; the games which throw into relief 
the dependence of the family upon organized in- 
dustry and those which suggest the bond between 
different branches of industry. 

It is impossible to make brief reference to these 
social plays without running the risk of exposing 
the kindergarten to ridicule, and the danger is 
the greater because the majority of those who will 
read this book have " apperceptive masses " with 
which its suggestions cannot " fuse " without un- 
dergoing a radical change. For thirty years ex- 
ponents of the kindergarten have denied that they 
were making an absurd effort to define institu- 
tional ideals to children between the ages of four 
and six. For thirty years they have insisted that 
what they were really trying to do was to lead chil- 
dren ^^ to love what they ought to love and hate 
what they ought to hate.'' Nevertheless, the cir- 
cle games have been repeatedly derided as assumed 
attempts to make children prematurely aware of 
institutional ideals, precisely as plays with balls, 
blocks, tablets, sticks, and rings have been at- 
tacked on the ground that object lessons in geom- 
etry were not suitable to children of such tender 



70 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

years. Within the past few years, however, the 
despair of protesting Froebelians has been miti- 
gated by two great discoveries. Modern child 
study has discovered the superior merit of Catho- 
lic over Protestant methods of developing the re- 
ligious sense, and modern psychology has discov- 
ered the priority of action over conscious thought 
and tirelessly repeats that what we do we attend 
to ; what we attend to becomes prepotent in deter- 
mining our associations ; and our associated ideas 
constitute the apperceiving mass through which 
we interpret experience. These discoveries are 
themselves great apperceiving ideas to which 
Froebelians may hopefully appeal. For what the 
kindergarten does is simply to quicken domestic, 
economic and patriotic impulses through the same 
appeal to imagination by which the Catholic 
Church quickens religious impulse, and it makes 
the appeal to imagination more potent by enlist- 
ing the child's own activity in the revelation of 
the ideal. 

(16.) In addition to the impersonation of typi- 
cal characters, and the portrayal of typical rela- 
tions, Froebel suggests the representation of typi- 
cal processes, such as the series of activities 
through which we get milk and bread ; the process 
of house-building, and the making of a wheel. 
Games of this kind are so planned that they not 
only hint the dependence of the individual, but 



I 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 71 

the interdependence of different industries. The 
baker depends upon the miller and farmer; the 
carpenter upon the woodman ; and without the 
wheel the whole industrial world would fall to 
pieces. From the moral point of view it is not a 
matter of small moment whether children take 
food, shelter, clothing, and transportation as nat- 
ural and inalienable rights, or whether they real- 
ize in some measure the conspiring activities 
which make possible these gifts of life. From the 
intellectual point of view it makes a wide differ- 
ence whether children form the habit of seeing 
mere points of fact or whether they are led to 
discover increasing arcs of fact. Whoever lives 
in broken pieces of himself must see a piecemeal 
world. He who attains continuity of thought and 
purpose will look away from those fragments of 
activity we call things to the energies that in- 
clude them. Hence, taken in connection with the 
sequences created in gift exercises, the games rep- 
resenting processes give the mind a bias which, 
with increasing years and enlarging experience, 
will predispose toward an evolutionary view of 
nature, of individual life and human history.^ 

* While the accent of the Froebelian games is placed upon 
human character and relationships, physical nature is not 
ignored and in a number of plays are represented typical 
phenomena of the inorganic world, typical aspects of plant 
and animal life and typical attitudes of man toward these 



72 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

" The universal," says Emerson, " never inter- 
ests us until it is housed in an individual." Con- 
versely, what interests us in the individual is the 
universal. Since we are so made that we will not 
refrain from seeking the universal, it is evident 
that a child's mind may be permanently warped 
by the coercion of fictitious or contingent apper- 
ceiving ideas. Education, therefore, must fur- 
nish imagination with valid types; geometric 
types as the first means of reducing to relative 
unity, ' " the chaos of sense-experience " ; typical 
plants and animals to illustrate the great classes 
into which the vegetable and animal worlds are 
divided ; the immortal types of the human form 
bequeathed to us by the genius of Greece, to teach 
us how divine it may become ; typical human char- 
acters as portrayed in history and made trans- 
parent in literature, in order that we may un- 
derstand the brotherhood of man, and that each 
one of us may not be shut up with a heart 
which knoweth only its own bitterness, or bounded 
by a joy with which no stranger can intermeddle. 
Can we speak of friendship without thinking of 

three spheres of being. See Froebel's Commentaries on the 
Weathervane and Light Songs, The Flower Song, The Garden 
Gate, The Little Gardener, Beckoning the Chickens and 
Pigeons, The Fish in the Brook, The Shadow Songs, The 
Farm Yard Gate. See also in Letters to a Mother, the follow- 
ing chapters: From Wind to Spirit, The Soul of the Flower, 
The Discovery of Life. 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 73 

David and Jonathan, Achilles and Patroclus, Py- 
lades and Orestes ? Can we think of patriotism 
without recalling Curtius and Regulus, William 
the Silent or our own Washington ? Can we dream 
of ideal motherhood without an immediate vision 
of some great picture of the Madonna and Child ? 
Finally, what is the beating heart of our Christian 
religion if not the recognition of one typical life 
as the standard by which we measure both the 
human and the divine ? When adult humanity 
gets rid of types it will be time enough to ask 
how we may do without their indispensable as- 
sistance in the education of the young child. 
Until that impossible moment let us use with- 
out misgiving types of form, types of char- 
acter and situation, types of relation and process, 
being sure in our own minds that a type is the 
concrete embodiment of a universal standard, 
the picture form in which all great ideals must 
be first revealed to the eye, the heart, and the 
imagination. 

(17.) The concentric programme and its Froe- 
belian antithesis embody mutually exclusive ideals 
of education. In the former, the core of unity is a 
subject selected by the teacher; in the latter, the 
core of unity is the child at play. The concentric 
programme clusters about its selected subject a 
number of more or less arbitrarily related ideas; 
its Froebelian antithesis follows and guides self- 



74 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

evolving energies as they ascend in widening 
spirals toward ever greater spherical totalities of 
thought, feeling, and will. The method of the 
concentric programme is a method of the under- 
standing. It aims to create a circle of conscious 
thought and appeals through the discriminating 
intellect to feeling and volition. The method of 
the kindergarten is the method of literature and 
art, and its primary appeal is to imagination. 
Remembering that " truth embodied in a tale shall 
enter in at lowly doors," it pictures universal 
truths through concrete examples. Anticipating 
that great dictum of contemporary psychology, the 
priority of the deed, it presents these concrete ex- 
amples in the form of productive processes and 
dramatic representations. It abets the native ef- 
fort of childhood to create a miniature world 
which shall interpret the actual world. In this 
miniature world human characters and relation- 
ships assume elementary but ideal forms; the 
archetypes of nature interpret her products, sug- 
gest her causal processes, and declare her aesthetic 
ideals; evolutionary doing reacts to produce evo- 
lutionary seeing, and the constant resolution of 
antitheses quickens a hopeful presentiment of the 
truth that there are no obstacles which mind may 
not vanquish, no contradictions the free spirit 
may not annul. By playing all the ideals which 
interpret nature and human life the kindergarten 



THE FROEBELIAN ANTITHESIS 75 

flings its rainbow bridge between the heart of 
childhood and the vision of manhood, and through 
the allurement of the beautiful impels intellect 
to the wrestle for truth, and persuades will to a 
prevailing struggle for goodness. 



CHAPTEK III 

THE METHODICAL TREATMENT OF LITERATURE 

The most meritorious deed of the educators 
who originated the concentric programme is 
their insistence upon the value of classic stories. 
It is unfortunate that they should have undone 
this righteous deed by using such stories as cores 
of concentration for all sorts of exercises, and 
by subjecting them to what is called a methodical 
treatment. The disastrous results of the first mis- 
take have been already considered. In illustra- 
tion of the second I quote the story of The Won- 
derful Kettle ^' treated '' for the benefit of chil- 
dren in the first school year. 

THE WONDEKFUL KETTLE' 



Once there was a very poor little girl, who lived 
with her mother near a great wood. They had noth- 

1 I quote from Herbart and the Herbartians, pp. 145-47. 
The story as there told is translated from Das Erste und 
Zweite Schuljahr and we are assured by Dr. De Garmo that 
it gives a good idea of the general method of treatment. 

76 



i 



METHODICAL TREATMENT OF LITERATURE 77 

ing to eat, and grew very hungry. Then the little 
girl went out into the woods. Here an old woman, 
who knew already that the little girl was hungry, met 
her. So the old woman gave the little girl a kettle, 
and said to her, " If you say to the kettle, ' Kettle, 
cook,' it will cook you good, sweet rice. But if you 
say, * Kettle, stop,' it will stop cooking." Then the 
little girl took the kettle home to her mother, and 
told her all about it. After this they did not need to 
go hungry, for as often as they pleased they ate good, 
sweet rice. 



One day the mother went away from home, and left 
the little girl all alone. Soon she became hungry, and 
said to the kettle, " Kettle, cook " ; but she had for- 
gotten all about saying, " Kettle, stop." The kettle 
kept on cooking more rice, until it ran over. Then 
the kitchen became full of boiled rice, then the whole 
house, then the street, and at last all the houses. No- 
body knew what to do. 

At last the mother came home, and called out, 
" Kettle, stop." It stopped cooking at once ; but who- 
ever wanted to get into that town had to eat his way 
in through the rice. 



METHODICAL TREATMENT 

A. (1) I have told you about a little girl. Who had 
died? Could they give her food any longer? The 
poor girl must have often suffered hunger, why? 
What must she have had, not to be hungry any 
more? Children name many kinds of food. There 
are warm foods and cold ones. How are warm foods 



78 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

prepared? (Kitchen, stove, fire.) How long must rice 
cook? May it cook forever? What would happen? 

I will tell you of a little girl who often had to go 
hungry. 

(2) Story to " as often as they pleased, they ate 
good, sweet rice." 

B. (1) What did the old woman give the girl? 
What was she to say to it? Could the mother say 
this, also? How did she know about it? What would 
the kettle do ? How long would it cook ? Do you sup- 
pose the girl had thought of this? If she had not, 
what would happen? 

(2) Story to " and nobody knew what to do." 

C. (1) How long will the kettle go on cooking? 
Who could stop it? Where is the mother? 

(2) Story to the close. Repetition by children. 
Uniting of the three sections. Questions on the 
whole. Several pupils tell the whole story. 

(3) The child had not remembered what the old 
woman had said. Who had? Has anyone ever told 
you anything that you ought to notice and remember? 
(The teacher, parents, brothers, and sisters, etc. Chil- 
dren give examples.) Who had not forgotten what the 
old woman said? What could the mother do when the 
rice ran over? Who had forgotten it? Who did not 
know what to do? If you have forgotten something, 
what can you not do? But if you have remem- 
bered, what can you do? What does the teacher 
(papa, mamma) say when you have forgotten 
something? What should you not do? What should 
you do? 

(4) " We must not forget what we are told to do." 

(5) Application : e. g. What should you do when 
you meet the teacher? (Greet him.) When you meet 



METHODICAL TREATMENT OF LITERATURE 79 

people on the street? When your mother goes away 
and tells you something, what must you do? etc/ 

The treatment of a story illustrated in the 
above example is an attempt to carry out in 
the teaching of literature what Herbartians call 
the five formal steps of instruction. The follow- 
ing tabular presentation of these several steps is 
given by Dr. De Garmo. 

1. Preparation — Analysis ) . x- i? 

2. Presentation-Synthesis [Apperception of percepts. 

3. Association ) Thought. The derivation of and ar- 

4. Systematization ) rangement of rule, principle, class. 

5. Application — From knowing to doing — use of motor 

powers. 1 

It will be observed that the ^ve steps of instruc- 
tion fall into three divisions, the first and second 
divisions containing each two steps, and the final 
division but a single step. The first step prepares 
for a new subject by calling into consciousness 
the apperceiving ideas through which it may be 
related to the existent store of experience, while 
the second step attempts a vivid presentation of 
the subject thus prepared for. Through the third 
and fourth steps the general principle concretely 
illustrated in the particular example is elicited, 
while in the final step a practical application of 

1 Herbart's Outlines of Educational Doctrine, Lange and 
De Garmo, p. 59. 



80 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

this principle is made to the life of the pupil. 
In the methodical treatment of the story of The 
Wonderful Kettle all these steps are conscien- 
tiously traversed. In sections A (1), B (1), 
and C (1) we are shown how the mind is prepared 
for each new lesson. In sections A (2), B (2), 
and C (2) we are called on to traverse the second 
step of vivid presentation. In section 3, begin- 
ning with the sentence, " The child had not re- 
membered what the old woman had said/^ we ad- 
vance to the third step whose aim is to compare 
and combine new and old ideas, in order that 
connection and harmony be established between 
them and that a general principle may be ex- 
tracted from them. In section 4 the extracted 
principle " that we must not forget what we are 
told to do,'' is stated in the form of a categorical 
imperative, while in the final section this general 
mandate is applied to the particular instances of 
the child's duty to greet his teacher or other per- 
sons whom he may happen to meet on the street, 
and his obligation to remember everything his 
mother may bid him do. 

Is it too much to say that such methodical 
treatment of a story must kill any interest chil- 
dren might otherwise have felt in it, and neutral- 
ize any influence it might have exerted upon 
them? Constant interruptions break the contin- 
uity of the narrative and distract the attention of 



METHODICAL TREATMENT OF LITERATURE 81 

the little listeners. The reiterated demands for 
repetition of the story up to a certain point must 
antagonize minds eager to hasten toward its cli- 
max. In the struggle to drag above the threshold 
of consciousness all that children may know about 
different foods, and the manner of preparing 
them, the minimum of interest which has survived 
interruptions, distractions, and forced repetitions 
must be effectually strangled. Finally, the anti- 
climax. " Do you always remember to greet the 
teacher ? " can appeal only to the moral sense of 
little prigs who lack all sense of humor. 

Several false psychologic assumptions are in- 
volved in the methodical treatment of literature. 
It is a grave mistake to suppose that children 
should precipitate in the form of conscious and 
compelling principles the feelings stirred within 
them by the presentation of typical characters, 
collisions, and catastrophes. On this subject Her- 
bart himself has written wisely, and it seems 
strange that his disciples should have departed 
so far from the counsel of their master. " Inter- 
rupt a narrative,'' he says, " with moral precepts 
and children will find you a wearisome narrator. 
. . . But give to them an interesting story, rich 
in incidents, relationships, characters, strictly in 
accordance with psychological truth, and not be- 
yond the feelings and ideas of children; make no 
effort to depict the worst or the best, only let a 
7 



82 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

faint, half-unconscious moral tact secure that the 
interest of the story tends away from the bad 
toward the good, the just, the right; then you will 
see how the child's attention is fixed upon it; how 
it seeks to discover the truth and think over all 
sides of the matter; how the many-sided material 
calls forth a many-sided judgment, how the charm 
of change ends in preference for the best/' ^ 
Fidelity to these suggestions would do away with 
four of the ^ve steps of method, and call upon 
the narrator only for the one feat of vivid presen- 
tation. 

The ascent of mind is from the particular fact, 
through the symbol to the concept or general idea. 
By the word symbol, as here used, is meant that 
change which takes place in a mental image when 
ceasing to be a mere copy of some external person, 
action, or event, it begins to translate the inner 
meanings of nature and of human life. In this 
sense the personages and collisions of literature 
are symbolic, because they present general types 
of character and experience under the revealing 
disguise of concrete examples. A good story must 
call forth in the mind of those who listen to it 
a series of vivid mental images, and the total 
series of images must converge toward the goal of 
some general idea. To picture the deeds of 

1 Science of Education, Herbart. Felkin's translation, pp. 

88, 89. 



METHODICAL TREATMENT OF LITERATURE 83 

David, Achilles, Curtius, is not merely to run 
through the mind a train of images, but to speed 
the train toward a terminus in the definition of 
heroism. On the other hand no mistake can be 
greater than to forestall the arrival of mind at 
the terminus of a general idea by either forcing 
upon it an external definition or dragging such 
definition prematurely from its ovm reluctant 
subconscious depths. A concept has been defined 
as a rule for the formation of images.-^ The im- 
ages created by genius conform to true rules, and 
therefore assist the mind to grasp true rules. Any 
general type of character will be more or less ade- 
quately apprehended, as it calls up in memory 
a larger or smaller number of illustrative images. 
Such images hovering around the general idea 
are like the separate child angels whose faces in 
many old pictures blend in the halo which sur- 
rounds the head of some devout saint. The se- 
verest criticism to be made upon the methodical 
treatment of literature is that it refuses to nas- 
cent thought that lingering contemplation of 
truths incarnate through which alone ^t can mount 
securely toward truth universal. 

A second psychologic assumption no less prac- 
tically misleading than that just considered is 
that new facts seize upon the mind with greater 

» Psychologic Foundations of Education, W. T. Harris, 
p. 38. 



84 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

force when they readily fuse with familiar ideas. 
Let us boldly announce the converse of this as- 
sumption and declare that new facts seize upon 
the mind with greater power when they antago- 
nize familiar experience. We recall Plato's af- 
firmation that knowledge begins with wonder, and 
we know that wonder arises when some new ob- 
ject or event refuses to blend with previous knowl- 
edge. The Wonderful Kettle is a good story, 
because it startles the mind with a kitchen uten- 
sil which can cook at command, thrills the free 
soul with a glad sense of free power, and hints 
that freedom implies obedience to law. It is 
pathologically treated when attention is diverted 
from its inspiring idea by tedious rehearsal of the 
manner of preparing different foods and by the 
hammering of such minor moralities as greeting 
acquaintances met on the street. There is more 
apperceiving energy in the feeling of astonish- 
ment than in any existent store of consciously 
related ideas. It may possibly be open to debate 
whether Herbart really held that ^' apperception 
conforms ex^^lusively to older concepts which are 
superior in strength to the new," ^ but there can 
be no doubt of the fact that his disciples place un- 
due emphasis upon that form of apperception 
which assimilates a new experience to the older 
content of consciousness, and are somewhat ob- 

» Apperception, Lange, p. 260. 



METHODICAL TREATMENT OF LITERATURE 85 

livious of the constitutional necessity of mind to 
make itself foreign to itself, in order that it may 
come to itself. Hence, their practical exercises 
tend perpetually toward repetition of the familiar 
and elaboration of the obvious. 

A third psychologic fallacy lurking in the 
methodical treatment of literature is that it is 
either possible or desirable for young children to 
be made aware of all that may be going on within 
their own minds. Ignoring the vast difference 
between knowing, and the knowing of knowing, 
this treatment calls for acts of " second inten- 
tion,'' possible only to the attained introspective 
power of mature intellects. One of the characters 
in Wilhelm Meister remarks " that it is the na- 
ture of the Germans that they bear heavily on 
everything, and that everything bears heavily on 
them." The educators responsible for the me- 
thodical treatment of literature paid the penalty of 
being Germans. So did Grube, when he expected 
of little children exhaustive and exhausting analy- 
ses of numbers up to ten. Germany is the deep- 
est thinking nation in the world, and through her 
heroes of contemplation leads mankind. But her 
lesser sons sometimes have to bear the defect of 
her surpassing merit. 

Shall I defy the coward fear which shakes my 
soul, and risk the horror of relegation to that 
limbo of outgrown absurdities wherein wander 



86 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the ghosts of faculty psychologists, by avowing 
my conviction that the motive of the appeal which 
the methodical treatment of literature makes to 
that form of mental activity commonly called the 
understanding is directly traceable to the Her- 
bartian dictum that the " soul is a simple wherein 
nothing exists but ideas, their relations and in- 
teractions.'' Such an analysis of mind predis- 
poses pedagogy toward undue accent upon the 
relations between conscious ideas, and undue neg- 
lect both of the feelings which hold ideas in 
solution and of the deeds through which they are 
precipitated in crystal forms of thought. * Mind is 
an energy, one and indivisible; feeling, willing, 
and knowing are special modifications of this en- 
ergy; sense-perception, memory, imagination, un- 
derstanding, reason are special modifications of 
that form of mental activity which we call know- 
ing ; all the forms of mental energy interpenetrate, 
and at no given moment is the mind exclusively 
determined as any one form. Nevertheless, it re- 
mains true that in different stages of development, 
and at different moments in all stages of develop- 
ment different forms of mental activity are pre- 
dominant over others, and that in childhood the 
predominating form is not understanding which 
laboriously seeks the relations between conscious 
concepts, but imagination joyously transmuting 
sense-images into general ideas. Childhood is 



METHODICAL TREATMENT OF LITERATURE 87 

not the age of prose, but the age of poetry, and 
it is a caricature of education to attempt to make 
children aware of relations and principles which 
should only stir in the semiconscious depths of 
the soul as prescient surmises. 

The methodical treatment of stories is not only 
an offense against the spirit of childhood ; it is also 
an assault both upon the form and spirit of litera- 
ture. The supreme merit of literature is its re- 
spect for human freedom. It wins by allurement, 
but never coerces by authority. It announces no 
moral imperatives, but appeals to " admiration, 
hope, and love " ; stirs liberating and aspiring im- 
pulses, and is content to warn against evil by 
portraying its ugliness and tracing its results. 
^' The playhouse," says one of George Macdon- 
ald's canny Scotch heroes, " is whaur ye gang to 
see what comes o' things as ye canna follow out 
in ordinar life." Good stories well told enrich 
the mind with concrete types of character which 
interpret human nature, and concrete situations 
which hint solutions of the problems of human 
life. Commenting upon the characters in Shake- 
speare's plays Goethe says that they " act before 
us as if they were watches whose dial plates and 
cases were of crystal which pointed out according 
to their use the course of the hours and minutes, 
while at the same time you could discern the com- 
binations of wheels and springs that turned 



88 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

them." In actual life we often fail to discern 
the feelings out of which convictions arise, and 
to connect actions with the convictions from which 
they result. Any true literary product makes us 
aware of this intimate connection between im- 
pulses, deeds, and convictions, and also traces the 
social recoil of each deed upon the doer. Thus 
it helps us to understand the springs of action in 
ourselves and others, and to define to ourselves 
which actions and motives make for and which 
against the life of man in society. Yet it knows 
no thus, no therefore, and no must, and never ap- 
peals directly either to understanding or con- 
science. Its animating principle is neither truth 
nor goodness, but beauty. Free itself through love, 
it dares to trust our love and freedom, and by this 
generous faith calls forth the energy through 
which " we erect ourselves above ourselves." 

My reason for dwelling at such length upon the 
psychologic fallacies embalmed in the methodical 
treatment of literature is that the influence of 
this method has been felt in the kindergarten. 
As a single illustration of the way in which stories 
have been tangled in a web of collateral informa- 
tion and of the more or less ludicrous and far- 
fetched moral imperatives distilled from them, I 
quote from the Kindergarten Review for Decem- 
ber, 1904 and January, 1905, some Suggestions 
for Programmes based upon ^N'ursery Rhymes. 



METHODICAL TREATMENT OF LITERATURE 89 

JACK AND JILL 

What a little boy and little girl did to help their 
mother: What the water was to be used for (washing, 
drinking, etc.) How many have helped their mothers 
this summer? Children's bumps: What to do for 
them; must be brave and learn to endure pain. The 
country well; well sweep; bucket and rope; pump vs, 
city faucets. 

DING DONG BELL 

The kind little boy. What took him to the well. 
Kindness to animals. Why we love the pussies. 
What they do to help in the house. 

LITTLE BOY BLUE 

Care of sheep and cows. Not only fed but kept 
from danger. They trample the cornfields. Children 
must not stop to play when sent on errands, or sleep 
when they should come to the kindergarten. Haycocks 
make a nice sleeping place. Straw rides. Calling 
sheep and cows by horns. 

THREE LITTLE KITTENS 

What mittens are made of; difference between mit- 
tens and gloves. Which keep the hands warmer? 
Careless children lose things — mittens, hats, books. 
Need to be taught to find them. Children can wash 
little things and so help mother. 

PUSSY CAT, PUSSY CAT 

London a big city — bigger than New York. Queen 
lived there; good Queen Victoria; queens wear fine 



90 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

clothes; live in grand houses; but mice even get in 
them. Pussy cat scares them away. Little children 
may help great folks. 



THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN 

Did you ever see a crooked man or child? Should 
never make fun of such; should be glad if you are 
straight; how much is done for crippled children; 
hospital at Forty-second Street. The doctor from Vi- 
enna who operated on Armour's child. 

Some years ago I was told of a class, the mem- 
bers of which were studying the Iliad as a 
manual of botany, numismatics, and ancient 
geography. The wrath of Achilles, which the sov- 
ereign poet announces as the theme of his epic, 
was a subject indifferent to these eager searchers 
for names of unknown plants, lost localities, and 
vanished coins. Is there not a similar profana- 
tion of the best literature for little children when 
our nursery classics are made points of departure 
for information about wells, pumps, faucets, mit- 
tens, gloves, hospitals, surgical operations, and 
children's bumps? And if Mother Goose be so 
lovable that, despite this distortion, she can still 
allure childish hearts, will even her charms prevail 
when her every rhyme is made the text of a moral 
homily culminating in a practical application to 
the duties of daily life ? I am glad I was a child 
in the good old days when I could enjoy the com- 



METHODICAL TREATMENT OF LITERATURE 91 

radeship of Jack and Jill without a solemn 
thought of duty to my mother or an arresting 
sense of how heroically I should bear my bumps ; 
when Tommy Stout and Little Boy Blue preached 
only by example, and when the Crooked Man him- 
self declared a secret of which the interpreter 
who calls upon children to rejoice that they are 
straight, and warns them against making fun of 
deformed people, has never dreamed.^ 

In brief epitome of the foregoing criticisms, I 
challenge the methodical treatment of stories be- 
, cause it forces attention to the relations between 
consciously defined ideas, whereas the aim of 
literature is to interpret the meaning of nature 
and life through concrete images, and the spirit 
of childhood demands such images as modes of 

* In addition to the inherent defect of its principle the 
systematic treatment of literature constantly betrays its 
votaries into the error of diverting attention from the true 
implication of a story or rhyme by harping upon a moral which 
is foreign to its intent. It seems incredible, for example, that 
moral exhortations to be grateful for straight backs and 
warnings against laughing at deformed persons could be 
deduced from a rhyme which fairly bristles with the state- 
ment that a crooked mind must perforce see a crooked world. 
As Mrs. Whitney puts it in Mother Goose for Grown Folks: 

"Once begin with a crook 
You'll go on with a crook; 

Crooked ways, crooked luck, crooked people, 
Crooked eyes, crooked mind, 
Crooked guide posts will find 

Yes, a crook in the very church steeple!" 



92 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

transit from particular facts to general concepts. 
The stories selected for little children should fur- 
nish clews to experience by presenting elementary 
types of character and situation, and they should 
be told in simple, straightforward fashion with- 
out repetitions, questions, the intrusion of useful 
information, the distillation of general principles, 
or the hammering and pounding of minor moral- 
ities. 

The concentric programme and the methodical 
treatment of literature are the characteristic 
features of what can only be described as an at- 
tempted revolution in pedagogy. The procedure 
for which it contends has already refuted itself 
in practice. Seeking a common core for mathe- 
matical, biologic, and humane studies, it lost the 
specific core of each study. Blind to the priority 
of action over conscious thought, it foolishly at- 
tempted to build character out of " presentations." 
It expected from immature minds an impossible 
act of unification. It refused to trust the allure- 
ment of the beautiful and the repulsiveness of the 
ugly. It aroused antagonism through its inces- 
sant and intrusive good advice. Are we not 
forced to conclude that the revolution attempted 
was a mistake? 



CHAPTER IV 

LITERATURE AND LIFE 

The nursery rhymes transmitted by word of 
mouth from generation to generation are one of 
the instrumentalities through which mankind be- 
gins the making of men. In them is preserved 
for childhood the child-thought of humanity. 
They portray elementary types of character and 
elementary problems of life and they have been 
sifted through the minds of so many generations 
of men living under so many varieties of condi- 
tions that they have lost all local, temporal, and 
accidental features. They are the world-litera- 
ture of the infancy of our race, and correspond 
remotely with the few supreme world-poems which 
touch the hearts and solve the problems of all 
mankind. 

It may help us to appreciate the universality 
of our nursery rhymes to recall to mind a few of 
the typical characters they celebrate. Who has 
not blushed to discover Cross Patch in herself? 
Who has not met many a Jack Horner pluming 
himself on the pie he had no part in making? 
93 



94 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

Who has not fled from that scold of Surrey, whose 
overzealous energy has ruined her temper? Who 
refuses sympathy to the mother of a progeny so 
numerous and so clamorous that they distract in- 
tellect and destroy serenity; and what human 
heart can be cold to the passion of that village 
wife of long ago, smarting under the disappoint- 
ment of a husband '^ no bigger than her thumb '^ 
angered by the shiftlessness shown in his ungar- 
tered hose and stung to contempt by the necessity 
of prodding him into rhino-hygienic habits ? One 
by one they rise before us, these defining charac- 
ters of our nursery rhymes. Here is the old man 
of the wilderness still asking his pointless ques- 
tions: yonder the woman, angry without cause, 
sticks fast in her apple tree ; the soul forever rest- 
less, because forever seeking satisfaction in " vic- 
tuals and drink^'^ looks out at us through discon- 
tented eyes : the man who has made himself a mere 
toy, because he would do nothing but play, follows 
the drudge dulled by unremitting toil; and, last 
figure of our moving panorama, we recognize that 
perpetual type of commonplace humanity, Solo- 
mon Grundy, about whom his biographer can 
only record that he was born, christened, wedded, 
and that he sickened and died.^ 

The value of typical characters is that they be- 

» I borrow many of these illustrations from Mrs. A. D. T. 
Whitney's Mother Goose for Grown Folks. 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 95 

gin the work of sorting humanity into classes. 
One of the great mistakes made in psychology is 
to suppose that the mind proceeds by abstraction, 
comparison, and generalization to general ideas. 
If the books on child study prove any one fact 
more conclusively than all others, it is that nas- 
cent thought seizes upon every single object as 
representative of a class, and that to little chil- 
dren all men are papas, all animals bow wows, and 
all ceilings skies. The lesson of this fact is that 
the attention of children should be directed to 
those objects, actions, persons, and events which 
are representative of true classes, in order that 
they may not lose themselves in the labyrinth of 
experience. The typical characters of literature 
give clews to human nature and act as ^' assimila- 
tive nets,'' with which the mind fishes for, catches, 
and holds different kinds of men. That all this 
fishing, catching, and holding is without the con- 
scious connivance of the fisher goes without say- 
ing. Indeed, the fact that it should never be 
made conscious is the one point which must be 
insisted upon out of pity for tormented childhood, 
reverence for literature and insight into the proc- 
esses of mental development. 

Passing from the study of nursery rhymes to 
that of traditional tales we find in the latter a 
significant advance which gives them unique and 
permanent value. Out of the classes into which 



96 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

humanity has been ordered emerges the ideal hu- 
man being. This ideal man is first of all a free- 
man of the universe. He is emancipated from all 
material needs. He is visible and invisible at 
will. He knows the secrets of nature, and she is 
plastic to his purpose. Space constrains him not, 
and he has triumphed over time. Where he would 
be there he is. What he would do he infallibly 
accomplishes. His character is drawn with 
strokes as telling as they are few. He is brave, 
kind, generous, pitiful, teachable, and prompt to 
serve. His life is spent slaying giants and rescu- 
ing imprisoned princesses. In a word, he is man^s 
earliest vision of his own ideal self as conqueror 
and deliverer, and to acquaint little children with 
him is to quicken the ideal self in them. 

In the myths of Greece, of Rome, and of the 
Teutonic peoples the rude outline of ideal human- 
ity sketched in household tales takes on solid 
form and resplendent color. The hero is now on 
one side of supernatural origin. Often, however, 
he has a contrasting twin, a brother who betrays 
him, or a sister whom he must deliver. Lacking 
such a twin he has upon his otherwise invulner- 
able body one vulnerable spot. Because of omens 
pointing to his future greatness he is driven from 
his home. He becomes a tireless wanderer. Dur- 
ing his wanderings he overcomes all kinds of mon- 
sters. He gains supernatural knowledge. As 



J 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 97 

moral consciousness deepens in the old story-tell- 
ers he is set to do deeds which involve his own 
sacrifice. But this sacrifice is a prelude to final 
victory, and the myth ends with the return of 
the hero to his home and his triumphal ascent of 
his rightful throne. 

This typical hero, son of a god, one of twins, 
exposed to fatal injury by a vulnerable spot, 
haunted by omens, persecuted and banished, seek- 
ing service afar, slaying monsters, gaining super- 
natural knowledge, returning to his native coun- 
try, freeing his twin brother, ascending his throne 
— what is he if not an embodiment of all that is 
deepest in the human soul and in human life? 
With the impulse to claim for him divine hered- 
ity, the psychologic Occident is born and the wres- 
tle of centuries begun between races content to 
hold that man is an accident of the universe and 
races whose hope, whose joy, and whose high des- 
tiny are bound up in the faith that there is kin- 
ship between man and God. The evil twin ap- 
prises us that imagination is haunted by man's 
double selfhood, and the struggle between him and 
his nobler brother celebrates that holy war where- 
in the soul is at once hero and betrayer, the bat- 
tle ground, the battle, the temporary defeat, and 
the final victory. Out of a similar foreboding 
springs the impulse to give the hero that spot of 
fateful import whose meaning is that the touch 

8 



98 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

of human imperfection clings even to nobly as- 
piring and achieving souls. Finally, the omens 
which drive the hero from his home are mythi- 
cal expressions of the fact that commonplace men 
are always pitted against the great man and do 
their best to get rid of him. 

The wanderings of the hero need little interpre- 
tation. Within the soul ^' latitude widens and 
longitude lengthens " ; '' within it are zones, seas, 
and continents,'' but without physical geography 
spiritual geography would be forever unknown. 
Therefore man, who is one world '' has another to 
attend him," and ceaselessly exploring the earth 
he discovers himself. 

As the wanderings of the hero foreshadow the 
triumphs of intellect, so his conquests predict 
the triumphs of will. The attendant world must 
be not only interpreted but dominated. The 
demean lion and the Lernean hydra must be 
slain; the Arcadian hind and the Erymanthian 
boar captured and domesticated; the stables of 
Augeus must be cleansed; the golden apples 
brought from the garden of the Hesperides, and 
even Hades must be invaded and its guardian led 
to the upper world. The destiny of man is to 
subdue and transform the earth and dwell in it 
securely its master and its lord. 

As I ponder the deep truths which steal into 
the heart through the gateway of our occidental 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 99 

myths there comes to me a new and thrilling sug- 
gestion. Men's souls to-day are sad because na- 
ture seems to them so totally depraved. But what 
if mere brute man, who is all he should not be, 
needs as his counterpart a brute nature which is 
all it should not be ? What if being free, man 
must create himself and if he can only create 
himself by recreating his world ? What if, her 
own great deed accomplished when man is born, 
nature lays herself at his feet and appeals to him 
to make her all she could never be ? What if our 
fields and gardens, our domesticated animals, our 
villages, towns, and cities, our railways stretching 
connecting lines across the continents, our steam- 
ships plying their uniting course across the seas, 
mean that man is slowly creating an ideal world, 
and through this creation is fashioning an ideal 
self? 

Perhaps the deepest thought which in obscure 
presentiment hovers before the creators of occi- 
dental myth is that the hero can win his cause 
only by sacrificing himself. " Woe is me," says 
Thetis in the Iliad, ^' Woe is me the mother of a 
hero." For a hero must serve, a hero must suffer, 
the highest hero must die for men. Yet since in 
the eternal order sacrifice and self-fulfillment are 
correlative ideas the hero though he die shall live 
forever and reign forever on his rightful throne. 

To know this hero of occidental myth is to love 



100 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES ' 

him and to grow into his likeness. We invert the 
relationship between life and literature when we 
say that literature copies life. The truer state- 
ment is that life copies literature, and that the 
heroes of myth, legend, and poetry create the 
heroes of history. Hegel reminds us that the 
history of Greece had its inception in the ideal 
youth, Achilles, and its consummation in the 
actual youth, Alexander. The question is perti- 
nent whether, lacking the hero of the Trojan War, 
Greece could ever have incarnated her spirit in 
the hero of Arbela. Or, to face frankly the su- 
preme example of the power of literature over 
life, who dare deny that without the Messianic 
dreams of Hebrew prophets the world might still 
be awaiting its Messiah. " Ever before us jour- 
neys the mighty ideal ; it never was known to 
fall in the rear." The prescient soul haunted 
with visions of its higher self flings a portrait 
upon the canvas of literature. Common men gaze 
upon the portrait until their dull and mean exist- 
ence becomes intolerable, and goaded by the 
l)eauty of the ideal they cease not from their 
striving until they have incarnated it in life. 

No less significant than the identities of occi- 
dental myth are the distinctive traits which re- 
veal the racial souls of Greece, of Rome, and of 
the Germanic peoples. The hero of Greek legend 
is above all beautiful; the hero of Eoman legend 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 101 

patriotic, the hero of Germanic legend insistent 
upon the rights and claims of his own individu- 
ality. Achilles is the golden youth of the world; 
Curtius the devoted youth of the world ; Siegfried 
the daring, defiant, jubilant, self -destructive 
youth of the world. 

History knows not one but many chosen na- 
tions, and Greece was the nation elect of history to 
realize the ideal of freedom in the form of beauty. 
She transfigured all the phenomena of nature 
into human forms of majesty and loveliness. She 
interpreted the higher impulses of the human 
heart as mandates of the gods, and as she had 
made nature human, made man divine. She was 
the great play-nation of the world, and her sons 
created graceful and beautiful bodies by calling 
into balanced exercise all typical forms of phys- 
ical activity. She was the great art nation of 
the world, and having created majestic and beau- 
tiful men, carved in imperishable marble her more 
majestic and beautiful statues of heroes and gods. 
Greece was the great literary nation of the world, 
summoning from the depths of her rhythmic 
spirit the noblest meters; creating not only the 
epic, the drama, and the lyric, but nearly every 
form knoT\Ti either to prose or poetry ; elaborating 
the criticism of language as the material of liter- 
ary art and bequeathing to the world what has 
ever since remained its standard work of literary 



102 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

criticism. She was the standard-bearing nation 
of the Occident, and alike in myth and history 
hurled her high defiance against Asiatic polyg- 
amy, despotism, pantheism, and that perverted 
self-renunciation which leaves no self to renounce. 
Finally, Greece was the great philosophic nation 
of the world and through the Platonic doctrine of 
the self-moved and the Aristotelian insight into 
completely realized self-activity (entelechy) pro- 
claimed the original source and ultimate goal of 
that freedom whose varied incarnation had been 
the incitement of all her historic striving. For 
all these reasons Greece was and shall forever re- 
main the great culture-nation of the world, and 
her appeal to each new age and generation is '^ to 
mount from fair forms to fair deeds, and from 
fair deeds to fair thoughts," until it stand at 
last in presence of that " uncreated loveliness," 
which to behold is to adore, and to adore is to re- 
create. 

Beauty is the only spiritual feature of matter 
— is, indeed, spirit shining through matter. The 
clod is not beautiful, but there is beauty in the 
crystal which manifests formative energy and re- 
flects the universal light. The flower is more 
beautiful than the crystal because it reveals a 
freer activity. The human form disciplined by 
selected exercises is beautiful becavise it is ideal 
activity incarnate. Human character is beautiful 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 103 

when through self-restraint and self -direction it 
has achieved spontaneous accord with the ideals 
of freedom. Human speech becomes beautiful 
through voluntary subjection to the ideal re- 
straints of musical words, lofty diction, rhythmic 
measures, and stately cadences. Always and 
everywhere beauty is the outward and visible sign 
of freedom, and implies self-restraint and self- 
transcendance. Because her national life was one 
long wrestle for freedom, Greece is the great re- 
vealer of beauty, and her prototype is the youth 
Achilles, beautiful in form and feature; beauti- 
ful in his prowess, beautiful when bowed with 
anguish and self-reproach, he bids strife to perish 
from among gods and men; beautiful when con- 
secrate to death, Athena sets about his head a 
cro^Mi of golden mist and from it makes to blaze 
a dazzling flame ; beautiful most of all when 
touched by tender pity for an enemy at his mercy 
he surrenders to aged Priam the body of his son. 
As Greece is the nation elect of history to re- 
veal the ideal of freedom in the form of beauty, 
so Kome is predestined by the world-spirit to em- 
body the ideal of freedom in the corporate forms 
of will. From her we inherit laws preventing 
that collision of each with all which reduces rea- 
sonable action to zero, and reenforcing the valid 
deeds of individuals with the strength of the com- 
munity or nation. Lacking the common tradi- 



104 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

tions through which most primitive communities 
are held together the outlaws who settled on the 
seven hills became the originators of the idea of 
contract. Since in a contract two wills combine 
there is suggested a common will superior to and 
transformative of individual caprice. In the 
pledge of the community as a whole to maintain 
contracts inviolate, and in the pledge of each in- 
dividual to honor and defend the community 
which safeguards his rights, this higher will be- 
comes more clearly emergent. Purpose is born 
in men and new words are coined to express what 
it contributes to the shaping of character.^ Pur- 
poseful men demand purpose in nature, and a 
veritable Ethics of the Dust is created by put- 
ting purpose into every fragment of the external 
world and organizing all lesser purposes to ac- 
complish the supreme purpose of the state. The 
human heart throbs with a new emotion and all 
Romans become patriots. The mythical embodi- 
ment of patriotism is Curtius, the self-devoted 

» "Through the study of Latin the boy or girl gradually 
becomes permeated with the motives of that serious-minded 
people. He comes to realize the special significance of those 
words that express the ideals of Roman character (and the 
ideals of all character) words which we have preserved in our 
translation into English — gravity, soberness, probity, honesty, 
self-restraint, austerity, considerateness, modesty, patriot- 
ism." — Psychologic Foundations of Education, Wm. T. Harris, 
pp. 271-72. (A suggestion of Rosenkranz. — Ed.) 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 105 

youth clad in shining armor and leaping into 
the gulf which could only close when it had swal- 
lowed Rome's most precious treasure. To the 
historic lineage of this mythical hero belong Reg- 
ulus, Cato, and Caesar, the Roman armies march- 
ing to the conquest of the world and the prae- 
torian courts which secure military conquests by 
establishing Roman jurisprudence. 

Rome falls but the eternal city is lifted by St. 
Augustine out of earth into heaven, and in the 
fullness of time the millennial struggle of the 
Latin mind, and the aspiration of ten silent Chris- 
tian centuries blend in the soul of a world poet 
who chants " Cosmic patriotism " in immortal 
verse. 

To know and love Achilles is to begin to love 
freedom as beautiful personality achieved by the 
self -creating spirit through overcoming the natural 
self. To know and love Curtius is to hear from 
afar the mighty challenge of mankind to man, to 
be haunted by that high impulse of devotion " be- 
fore which our mortal nature trembles in sur- 
prise " ; to be smitten with a foreboding that the 
free human being must die not only to his lower 
self but for his higher self incarnate in the state. 
But what shall be said of Siegfried ? Does his de- 
fiant and self-destroying career suggest any im- 
plication of freedom ? Does it reveal a racial 
soul ? Does it perchance forecast a racial peril ? 



106 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

The various tribes of the Germanic race stand 
out among all the races of men as by nature most 
clamorous for satisfaction of immediate impulse, 
and most insistent upon recognition of their im- 
mediate personality. They will do what they 
choose ; they will be valued for what they are, and 
they will promptly slay any man who dares to 
interfere with their free action, or refuses them 
the honor they claim as their due. Bold, spirited, 
adventurous, fierce, they defy nature, other men, 
and all the gods. Once for all they are here and 
they will make good their right to be. 

We need only look within and around us to as- 
sure ourselves that the old Teuton and Saxon are 
still very much alive. " I must be loved just as 
I am,'' whispers the maiden descendant of Hen- 
gist complacently, unaware that she is merely 
reverberating ancestral impulse. " Knock me 
down if you can and if not get knocked down 
yourself," shouts her brother to his mates. " The 
cowboy on the American border lands," says Dr. 
Harris, ^^ announces his approach to a settlement 
by daring the whole village out to fight him ; the 
miners of Poker Flat, the hunters and trappers of 
the I^orthern Wilderness manifest also a chival- 
rous personality which demands immediate recog- 
nition, and. which will risk life without the slight- 
est hesitation for this motive." American stories 
for children celebrate the adventures of boys and 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 107 

girls so abundantly able to protect, support, and 
educate themselves that fathers and mothers seem 
mere relics of an outgrown past. At last even 
education falls into ancestral toils, and declining 
upon the heresy of free play insists as the latest 
discovery in method that children can become all 
they ought by doing as they please. 

The energy of life beats high in our ancestral 
impulse, and I for one would not surrender my 
own racial inheritance for that of any other race. 
'' Other peoples," says Hegel, " have definite ob- 
jects in which they seek supremacy. They seek 
wealth or beauty, or abstract right or power or 
caste distinction, but the Teutonic race seeks the 
satisfaction of the heart." ^ The free spirit ob- 
scurely aware of freedom demands that freedom 
shall be honored. The contradiction which rends 
the soul of all Germanic peoples is that each in- 
dividual claims freedom for himself alone and 
blindly identifies freedom with the gratification of 
immediate impulse. Because of this contradiction 
the Germanic races are the most savage and self- 
destructive the w^orld has ever known. But his- 
tory vindicates all her chosen peoples, and having 
charged these self-destroying savages with regen- 
erate ideals she is even now sending them forth 
to redeem the world. 

So mighty is the defiance of the Germanic 
» Hegel's Philosophy of History, Eng. transl., p. 363. 



108 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

spirit that it is powerless to bring forth out of 
itself the constraining ideals through which alone 
its deepest impulse can be realized. It can, how- 
ever, divine the destiny its soul portends, and it 
has adumbrated the catastrophe which threatens 
it in that tragic myth all of whose chief person- 
ages are betrayed by imperative impulse into 
fatal deeds and whose climax is the destruction 
of gods created in the image of fated men. Of 
this tragic myth the story of Siegfried is an in- 
tegral part. A great genius has interpreted his 
story in verse and music, and has taught us all 
to love the forest lad sounding his merry horn; 
rushing upon fierce beasts through pure delight 
in combat ; forging with mighty strokes his magic 
sword; imitating the love song of birds; slaying 
the dragon and possessing himself of Tarnhelm 
and ring; breaking the spear of Wotan; bursting 
through the wall of flame; waking and winning 
the sleeping Valkyr and learning from her the 
mystic runes which should have made, but did not 
make him wise. 'No story in all the world paints 
such an appealing picture of light-hearted, way- 
ward, and reckless youth. No story in its sequel 
reveals so clearly the dangers which camp about 
the freedom-loving, law-defying, adventurous, and 
undisciplined soul. For any youth, and espe- 
cially for any youth of Germanic lineage, to know 
and love and mourn for Siegfried is to be haunted 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 109 

by presentiments of all the fatalities which 
threaten himself. 

If the reader has divined that each of the three 
great peoples of the Occident has foreshadowed in 
myth and illustrated in history a distinct aspect 
of free personality, the question will press, 
whether the revelation be complete. From Greece 
we learn that in free personality beauty attains 
consummate expression; from Rome that person- 
ality implies a common and therefore transcend- 
ent will; from the Germanic peoples that it is 
daemonic, and unillumined by its own ideal, rushes 
madly to destruction. But what becomes of 
beauty if its vanishing types point to no arche- 
typal reality? What becomes of transcendental 
will if there be no transcendent person in whom 
it inheres ? And what avails a passion for free- 
dom so compelling that it joyfully embraces 
death if in that mad embrace freedom be forever 
crushed and slain ? 

The spiritual orient ends and the spiritual Oc- 
cident begins, not with Greece, but with that 
wonderful tribe which, wandering from the East, 
halts for a while in Chaldea and Egypt and settles 
finally a consciously chosen people in a promised 
land. Asia is the mother of religions. She 
brought forth Brahm and tried to still the craving 
of her soul with his formless and impotent infini- 
tude. Descending into more energetic depths of 



no EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the spirit she rose therefrom bringing Ahura 
Mazda and Angra Mainyu locked in a deathless 
struggle. Quickened bj the cycles of nature so cor- 
respondent to and interpretive of the cycles of the 
intellect, she conceived Osiris, who through death 
achieved divinity. But her haunting question 
was not adequately answered, nor her historic 
mission accomplished until with the concordant 
voices of Hebrew prophets and psalmists she pro- 
claimed God a Free Person, degraded proud na- 
ture to His handiwork, glorified man as His 
image, and revealed righteousness and loving- 
kindness as His eternal attributes. 

It has been said '' that the first man who re- 
strained the native instantaneous movements of 
the self-preserving, self-reproducing instincts had 
morality revealed to him.'' Such self-restraint 
declares that the ideal and permanent self has 
victoriously confronted the natural and vanish- 
ing self. Of all historic peoples the Hebrew was 
most intimately aware of this antagonism between 
natural and ideal selfhood and most immediately 
assured that the mandates of the ideal self were 
uttered with divine authority and would be en- 
forced by divine compulsion. '' The objective 
validity of the moral '' was the point of departure 
for the Hebrew religion, and since the inseparable 
correlate of morality is will, through the logic of 
conscience, ascent was made to the idea of a per- 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 111 

sonal God. This great concept attained, the sub- 
sequent history of the Hebrew people records one 
long wrestle with its implications, and gradually 
the national mind decides upon righteousness 
and loving-kindness as the determining attributes 
of Jehovah. ^' The Lord God is merciful and 
gracious " and " Like as a father He pitieth his 
children." And yet this loving God is also a right- 
eous God and ^' will by no means clear the guilty.'^ 

Great philosophers have made us aware that 
loving-kindness and justice are necessary implica- 
tions of personality. A selfish God would refuse 
to share His being. But such a selfish God could 
not be personal, because personality demands 
that the self make itself objective. Hence per- 
sonality presupposes an altruistic God who be- 
stows real and not merely seeming being upon 
His creatures. Again true being presupposes free- 
dom, and the creature possessing it must be held 
responsible for his deeds. Therefore God cannot 
be loving unless He is just and by returning upon 
each doer the moral equivalent of his deed recog- 
nizes his freedom and dignity.^ 

Only those who know how far imagination and 
conscience outrun conscious definition and realize 

» The argument advanced is borrowed from Dr. Harris and 
is to be found in a monograph entitled Hegel's Voyage of 
Discovery, read before the American Philosophical Associa- 
tion, December, 1903. 



112 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

that without their antecedent activity reason would 
have nothing to define, can appreciate the divine 
message given through the Hebrews to all man- 
kind. Appreciation deepens with recognition of 
the fact that conscious definition too often leaves 
the definer cold to the practical demands of the 
truth defined. The glory of the Hebrew people is 
not only that it gave us the one true God, but that 
it gave us a nation living by faith in God. The 
deliverance of Israel from Egypt was by His 
might ; the land flowing with milk and honey was 
His gift; national prosperity was from God's 
hand ; national adversity was His chastisement ; 
national enemies were His scourging rods; na- 
tional captivity was the affliction with which 
He visited His people because of the multitude 
of their transgressions, and the undying na- 
tional hope was that the redeemed of the Lord 
should return and come with singing unto 
Zion. 

Between the chosen people and the true God 
there was established a covenant of righteousness. 
Their pledge to Him was obedience; His pledge 
to them blessing for themselves and through them 
for the whole world. Disobedience was deser- 
tion to false gods and destruction for the deserter. 
I^ever has the objective validity of the moral had 
more signal recognition. Never has practical de- 
nial of the moral imperative been more clearly set 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 113 

forth as the sole and sufficient cause of individual 
and national disaster. 

The heroes of Hebrew story are many, but their 
spirit is one, and whether they subdue kingdoms, 
stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of 
fire, or raise the dead to life, their victory is al- 
ways the triumph of a faith which works right- 
eousness. To influence childish imagination with 
their prevailing deeds is to kindle in the hearts 
of children something akin to their believing, 
loyal, and resolute temper. It is well to know 
Achilles, Curtius, Siegfried, but if by the path- 
way of the good, man climbs most securely to that 
eminence of spirit whence he discerns final truth 
and perfect beauty, it is dangerous not to know 
Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Daniel, and 
the Hebrew youths unharmed in the furnace 
of fire. 

The latest supposed discovery in morals is, that 
there are none. The one fixed fact about moral- 
ity is that it must be fluid. Nature ascends by 
making creatures with more brains. Let us con- 
spire with nature to create men with more brains. 
Whatever contributes to this result it is expedi- 
ent to do, and this versatile and adaptive expe- 
diency is the genial successor of all despotic and 
stultifying moral imperatives. With this discov- 
ery thought retreats from the Hebrew intuition 
that to morality belongs objective validity upon 



114 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

that contingent morality which even to-day is 
characteristic of farther Asia,^ and as a logical 
result abandons all lingering faith in an eternal 
intellect to which human intellect corresponds. 
Man is the orphan of a universe indifferent to his 
fate and must either succumb to, defy, or outwit 
the dread unknown. 

History is concrete psychology, and to follow 
the historic evolution of an idea is to discover its 
psychologic implications. Momentous, therefore, 
is the historic ascent of Hebrew imagination from 
the objective validity of the moral to the vision 
of a personal God, and to divination of justice 
and love as His necessary attributes. These intui- 
tions attained, mind is impelled by its own dia- 

» " We wonder if the worst idea of Asia, that morality has 
no immutable basis, but is a fluctuating law dependent upon 
some inexplicable relation between the individual and the 
Creator, or the individual and the All, will ever come over 
here. The Indian holds that a line of conduct may be right 
for one man, or indeed imperative, but wrong for another, or 
indeed insufferable; that a world-wide law is unthinkable; and 
that each man will be judged because of his obedience to some 
law external to himself yet peculiar to his own personality. The 
kings' obligation to the divine is not the peasants'; the ordinary 
Brahmin must be monogamous, while the Koolin Brahmin 
may have sixty wives ; the trader may cheat where the carrier 
must keep contract; the usual Hindoo must spare life, while 
the Thug may take it and yet remain sinless. That opinion 
subverts the very foundations of morality and conduct." 
(Italics mine). — Asia and Europe, Meredith Townsend, pp. 
142-43. 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 115 

lectic to deeper presuppositions. To visit upon a 
finite being the complete return of his deed would 
be to annihilate him. Therefore, justice cannot 
be wholly just until it mete the equivalent of deed 
upon a perfect doer. This perfect doer, moreover, 
is presupposed not only by divine justice, but by 
divine altruism, for love cannot be satisfied with 
giving until it has given itself. Implicit there- 
fore in the concept of a Personal God, wdiose 
necessary attributes are justice and love, is that 
doctrine of the Logos, which holds that from all 
eternity a Perfect Person must have completely 
objectified Himself in a Second Person equal to 
Himself but distinguished from Him by the fact 
of derivation and also that doctrine of creation 
which discerns that, in thinking his derivation, the 
Logos calls the world of [N^ature and Man into 
actual being. ^ 

We all know how this final implication of per- 
sonality was first revealed to men. Alike by those 
who accept and those who reject it, its historic 
source is traced to the consciousness of Jesus 
Christ and its initial form recognized in His im- 
mediate relationship to a God whom He knew as 
His father and to men whom He knew as His 
brethren. His life and death conferred supernatu- 
ral value upon each individual of the human race 

' For an explanation of these two doctrines, see Chapter 
XII. 



116 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

because they declared every man to be a child of 
God, worthy that God should die for him, and 
called to be perfect as his Father in heaven is 
perfect. 

Coiled within the recognition of each man's 
supernatural value is recognition of his ideal self, 
and identification of this ideal self with the ideal 
self in all other men. The man for whom God 
dies is mankind. Mankind in men is the ideal 
self in men. Being one in all men it makes all 
men one. Hence whatever is granted to one man 
must be claimed for all men, and whatever any 
individual claims for himself, he must spend his 
life to bestow upon his brother. 

The Christian intuition of ideal selfhood ex- 
plains and by explaining heals that breach be- 
tween man as he is and man as he ought to be, 
whose pain was the original point of departure 
for the Hebrew religion. And as it completes 
the striving of one great historic race, so it in- 
itiates the striving of another. Christian mission- 
aries carry to Germanic savages the message of 
the Gospel. They tell men — by nature most as- 
sured of their own supernatural value and heart- 
hungry for recognition — of a God who died for 
them. They stir in spirits eager for high ad- 
venture the ideal of service. The rude warrior 
who made good his right to be by slaying all who 
dared contest it, surrenders to a self-sacrificing 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 117 

God, and emulating His love is transformed into 
a brave, courteous, and pious knight who spends 
his life seeking to right wrong and to succor the 
oppressed. 

It was said in the earlier part of this chapter 
that life copies literature. This is true, but the 
relationship between life and literature is too 
complex to be stated without paradox, and it must 
now be affirmed that literature transfigures life. 
Without Achilles, Alexander might never have 
been, but without the unknown champions who 
upon the borderland between Asia and Asiatic 
Greece defended the impulses out of which were 
crystallized occidental ideals, there had been no 
Achilles and no Homer. So without the self- 
destructive deeds of countless Teutons there had 
been no Siegfried and no Gotterdammerung, and 
without historic knighthood there had been no 
Arthur, no Galahad, and no mystic vision of pure 
spiritual life embodied in legends of the Holy 
Grail. 

To see what we should be is to discover what 
we are and to rouse the native self to desperate 
struggle. Becoming a Christian, the fierce savage 
who for ages had made good his being by slaugh- 
ter, found at last the one foe he must slay, the one 
foe who might slay him. If Christianity gave 
the Teuton God it also gave him the devil, and 
in the warfare it set raging within his soul he 



118 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

knew the devil often won the victory. Inordinate 
impulse was lashed to frenzy by ideal restraints, 
and in moments of madness the whole of life 
was freely staked against immediate gratification. 
Again, projecting racial madness into myth the 
Germans created the legend of Faust. They had 
learned that there can be no twilight of the gods, 
but they were intimately apprised of a final and 
fatal twilight of the individual soul. 

The legend of Faust and the legends of chiv- 
alry are mythical expressions of an antithesis 
which history must resolve. Faust asserts the old 
imperative impulse, knighthood recognizes an im- 
perative ideal. The ancient instinct, and the 
accepted ideal seethe and whirl in the storm- 
tossed spirit of a race, which had named its soul 
after the storm-tossed sea.^ History shows the 
submerging impulse, the ever more clearly emerg- 
ing ideal. There shall be no claim for one man 
which is not recognized as the right of all men. 
Germany gives the world gunpowder and thereby 
" makes all men equally tall and strong." She 
invents printing and makes it possible for all men 

' See Max Miiller's Science of Language, American Edition, 
vol. i, p. 380. Also Grimm's Dictionary under the word 
Seele, "In its original form Saiwalo . . . earlier connected 
with the word See (Saiwig) ... by the word Seele (soul) the 
Germans called to mind the restless waves of the sea (lake 
or ocean) which seemed to resemble the ceaseless working 
of their own inner powers," etc. 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 119 

to be wise. Seizing upon Luther as her cham- 
pion she proclaims the right of individual thought. 
Confronting with unflinching faith the negative 
outcome of this daring deed in the horrors of the 
French Revolution, she sings the triumphant 
song which reverses the doom of Faust and ap- 
peases the soul-hunger immanent in aboriginal 
impulse by setting the free man on a free soil 
among a free people. Last of all, with sublime 
introspection she vindicates her racial instinct in 
a philosophy which adequately defines freedom 
and reveals it as the Creator of Hebrew Religion, 
Greek Art, and Roman Law. 

Freedom we call it, for holier 
Name of the soul there is none; 
Surelier it labours, if slowlier, 
Than the metres of stars or of sun; 
Slowlier than life into breath; 
Surelier than time into death. 
It moves till its labour be done. 

As Germany solves the theoretic implications 
of freedom, so the English-speaking branch of the 
Germanic race discovers the practical instrumen- 
talities through which freedom may be established 
and confirmed among men. Discerning that free 
men must not only be well governed but must 
themselves become participant in the governing 
power, England invents local self-government 



120 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

and America creates a national government of, 
for, and by the people. Self-government de- 
mands intelligence and public schools spring into 
being. The free man must not be pent in space 
nor limited in communion; hence, steamships and 
railways carry him around the world and bring 
the world to him. Over electric wires are flashed 
each day the news of the nations. Public libra- 
ries make the wisdom of the past accessible and 
empower each man to live in communion not only 
with contemporary but with historic humanity. 
History began when the solitary were set in fam- 
ilies. It will attain the ideal it has forever ap- 
proached when through the federation of the 
world it creates the cosmopolitan individual.* 

With justified pride Englishmen remind the 
world that they have given it Kunnymede, and 
Shakespeare — the first great charter of liberty, 
and the imperial genius who saw, as poet had 
never seen before, the ethical demands of freedom. 
Literature arose in concrete response to the ob- 
scure search of intellect for the conditions under 
which men might live together. To this impor- 
tunate question the dramas of Shakespeare are 
the poetic reply. They portray all typical col- 

> See in The Poetry and Philosophy of Goethe, S. C. Griggs 
& Co., Chicago, a paper by Dr. Wm. T. Harris on The 
Poetry and Philosophy of Goethe, to which this chapter owes 
many obligations. 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 121 

lisions between particular men and the social 
whole and mete to each colliding individual the 
exact equivalent of his deed. The arbitrariness 
of Lear, the ambition of Macbeth, the jealousy of 
Othello cleanse men's souls of these debasing pas- 
sions. The vacillation of Hamlet fires will to 
stern resolve. The great historic plays fan the 
flame of freedom in the soul by portraying its 
struggle to incarnate itself in a national state. 
As to Germany belongs the poet of the individ- 
ual, so to England belongs the poet of society. 
Through its supreme poet each of the two great 
branches of the Germanic race has interpreted to 
itself and to all men its own master impulse. 

With recognition of the federated union of the 
world and the cosmopolitan individual as the goal 
toward which humanity has always struggled, we 
resolve the complex relationship existing between 
literature and life. Literature transfigures life 
by discerning and portraying the lineaments of 
generic or divine humanity. Life copies litera- 
ture because it approximately defines her own 
ideal. Incarnating this ideal she makes possible 
a more accurate and more comprehensive defini- 
tion. It has been said that no great general was 
ever born in a nation of cowards, and no great 
philosopher in a nation of fools. It may be added 
that no great poet was ever born in a nation lack- 
ing all mystic vision. The wave which dashes 



122 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

highest on the shore is borne there by the power of 
the ocean. The supreme individual is the tri- 
umph of mankind. He vindicates his right to be 
by creating a humanity assimilated to himself. 

The world is always repeating Pilate's ques- 
tion, What is truth? Philosophy accepts and 
interprets the answer of Jesus, Truth and the 
Ideal Person are one, and bestows as her great- 
est largess insight into the implications of person- 
ality. Her definitions and presuppositions ap- 
pease the intellect, but unallied with literature 
they leave the will languid and the heart cold. 
The ideal person concretely presented, appeals to 
intellect, emotion, and volition. With the total- 
ity of his selfhood he invokes the totality of ours, 
and responsive to his challenge we gaze with ad- 
miration, glow with love, and flame with high 
resolve. 

Creating a larger and more generous humanity, 
literature necessarily creates a nobler speech. By 
the criterion of language man is distinguished 
from the brute. It arises when men begin to 
live together and its use implies ascent into the 
common mind. It is impossible until men have 
learned to think some general concepts, and there- 
fore its advent celebrates the emergence of the 
ideal. While ideals are few and indistinct, lan- 
guage must be poor and vague. Until society has 
created individuals capable of original feeling, 



LITERATURE AND LIFE 123 

thought, and action, it must gyrate in a tedious 
round of conventional words and phrases. Noth- 
ing but distinction of mind can create distinction 
of speech. The men and women of great litera- 
ture are cast in larger molds than their actual pro- 
totypes, and use a nobler language. Their speech 
grasps each idea in an accurate and lucid defi- 
nition. Challenged to do heroic deeds their an- 
swering words echo the clang of steel. Their 
phrases sparkle with fine allusion and glow with 
illuminating images. Their sentences move with 
stately grace to musical measure. Being great 
they express greatness. When in the actual world 
intelligence has become transparent, will heroic, 
sensibility delicate, and life harmonious, living 
men shall speak even as they. 

The debt of man to literature is great. So is 
the debt of man to history. But to neither nor 
both does man ow^e everything. Existent human- 
ity is often explained as a kind of self -creation out 
of nothing. It is well to remind ourselves that to 
make something out of nothing is impossible even 
to omnipotence, God Himself only makes to be 
that which has always been, and the broad crea- 
tion, proceeding ever afresh from His thought and 
love, is the ceaseless reaffirmation of His eternal 
and all-inclusive deed. Man can make himself 
actually only what from the beginning he is po- 
tentially, and his self-realization is progressive 



124 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

self-definition. Being a personal energy he cre- 
ates himself in and through communion with 
persons. History records the stages of man's self- 
realization in ever enlarging communities. Liter- 
ature portrays the stages of man's self-discovery 
and points forward to the greater communities 
through which he shall explore himself more 
completely, and climb higher above himself. Both 
history and literature reach toward a consumma- 
tion which is unattainable on earth and in time. 
The deed which earth demands of man is ascent 
into the human species. The exciting experience 
to which eternity and infinity invite him is ascent 
into the divine genus. When through communion 
Avith all souls throughout the cosmos each soul per- 
fects itself, the prophecy of literature will be ful- 
filled and the purpose of history accomplished. 



CHAPTEK Y 

HERBART AND FROEBEL 

In discussing the concentric programme and 
the methodical treatment of literature, I have 
dealt with that form of Herbartianism which in- 
vaded the kindergarten. It has been far from 
my intention to imply that were Herbart alive 
he would sympathize with the educational prac- 
tice of his more radical disciples. Professor Stoy, 
leader of the conservative Herbartians, expressed 
the conviction that '^ Ziller's novelties were harm- 
ful exaggerations." ^ The educators who created 
a practical plan of work out of these exaggera- 
tions would seem to have accepted with a too un- 
questioning assurance the three main tenets of 
Herbart, that the final aim of education is moral- 
ity; its immediate aim many-sided interest; and 
the means of arousing this desired interest, the 
presentation of thought-masses. With minds in- 
tent upon this aim and method their attention 
directs itself to creating " connected unities of 
subject matter," and apparently they remain se- 

> Herbart and the Herbartians, De Garmo, p. 185. 
125 



126 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

renelj unaware that a constraining thought-mass 
can never be imposed by one mind upon another, 
but must somehow be compacted by each mind for 
itself. 

Had the originators of concentric instruction 
given their careful attention to Herbart's discrim- 
ination between primordial and derived presenta- 
tions, they might have avoided some of their more 
glaring mistakes in the education of little chil- 
dren. According to Herbart's psychology the 
only original power of the soul is ^' that of enter- 
ing through the medium of the nervous system 
into reciprocal relations with the external world. 
These relations supply the mind with its primor- 
dial presentations — the sensuous ones of sight, 
hearing, smell, taste, touch, pleasure, pain.'^ ^ 
The interaction of these primordial presentations 
produces the derived presentations which in their 
varied developments form the greater part of the 
mind's contents.- It follows that the building of 
thought-masses must begin by laying a strong 
foundation of primordial presentations, and this 
is precisely what Herbart himself attempted to do. 
The duty of instruction as he conceived it was 
" to guide from below upward two series, sepa- 
rate yet ever simultaneously progressing toward 

' Science of Education, Felkin's translation. Introduction 
by translators, p. 33. 

2 IHd., p. 34, sentence slightly transposed. 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 127 

the highest immovable point." ^ These series he 
distinguished by the names cognition and sym- 
pathy. The series of cognition was to begin with 
exercises for sharpening sense-perception; the 
series of sympathy with stories presenting con- 
crete types of action and character. The appeal 
of the former series was to the child's several ex- 
ternal senses, and its object w^as to create an ap- 
perceptive mass whose reaction upon a progressive 
experience would tend toward a correct interpre- 
tation of nature; the appeal of the latter series 
was to his taste or immediate likes and dislikes, 
and its object was to build up a sound moral ap- 
perceptive mass out of numerous simple aesthetic 
judgments of repugnance and agreement.^ 

Herbart was familiar with the experiments of 
Pestalozzi, and through his doctrine of appercep- 
tion, which insists upon the necessity of assimilat- 
ing new perceptions by the total amount of pre- 
vious experience, he added an indispensable 
supplement to the theories of the Swiss reformer. 
With the idea of apperception active in his own 
mind he was necessarily dissatisfied with the 

' Herbart's A. B. C. of Sense Perception. Eckoff Int. Ed. 
Series. The reader will perceive that the passage cited is one 
of Herbart's many statements that instruction should be 
divided into two main lines, the one for understanding, the 
other for feeling and imagination. See Chapter I of this 
book. 

2 Ibid., p. 89. 



128 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

alphabet of sense-perception offered by Pestalozzi. 
Like Eroebel, he perceived that there might be 
not one but many alphabets of externality, e.g., 
alphabets of tastes and odors, of the muscular 
sense, of color and musical tones, and of the 
mathematical elements, form, number, and size. 
Like Froebel, again, he perceived that the most im- 
portant alphabet of external sense-perception was 
that which would enable children to begin spell- 
ing out the truths of mathematics. For without 
mathematics '^ the objective data of experience 
cannot be correctly apperceived," nor can that 
causal interest be satisfied which " impels search 
for the laws binding these data together." ^ Cog- 
nizant of these truths Herbart provided a system 
of instruction which ^' analyzes all forms into 
triangles, and discovers the ratios of the sides of 

• "Sense-perception on the part of the student supplies, 
of course, the first elements of knowledge. But equally of 
course the educator who in the Baconian phrase should be 
the minister and interpreter of nature will arrange the sense- 
perceptions of the child, in, for example, object lessons exactly 
as he will any other work — namely, according to his view of 
the general purpose of instruction. The question then is what 
is the view that he should take? In the first place it will be 
conceded that the object of learning is doing and that before 
we can act properly, we must have properly learned. This 
we cannot do except by attention, by devotion to the object 
in hand. It aU comes to the accurate apperception of the ob- 
jective data. In the second place the child seeks for the laws that 
bind these data together. These laws may be at first of ex- 
tremely crude empiricalness; the child may not even know the 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 129 

the triangles one to another as' depending upon 
the size of the angles." ^ This mathematical al- 
phabet, it is evident, will enable pupils to classify 
the infinitude of forms in nature under a finite 
number of geometric archetypes ; will reduce these 
archetypes to unity by analyzing them into a 
single form ; will explain the varieties of this 
form itself by showing that the ratio of its sides 
one to another is dependent upon the size of the 
angles; and finally, will direct attention away 
from all forms to formative processes and thus 
abet the child in that search for causal energy 
which is the final source of his interest in the 
inanimate objects of his environment. What 
he really wants to know is not an object but 
an object-making energy. Himself a causative 
power he can appease his intellect only with 
causes. 

As Herbart perceived that mathematics offer 
the best point of departure for the comprehension 
of nature, so he recognized in good stories well 
told the best point of departure for all studies re- 
term laws, but that is what it seeks. But the data as well as 
the laws are manifested in time and space; in other words in 
mathematics. . . . Mathematics, then, is the mental basis for 
apperceiving both data and laws." (Italics are mine.) — 
Herhart's A. B. C. of Sense-Perception, p. 82. Chapter con- 
tributed by Professor Eckoff. 

1 Herbart's A. B. C. of Sense-Perception, Editor's Preface, 
p. viii. 

10 



130 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

lating to the comprehension of man. His sugges- 
tions with regard to the selection of stories are 
admirable. They must not celebrate the e;s:ploits 
of children, " for the whole look of a well-trained 
boy is directed above himself." ^ They must pre- 
sent such men as he himself would like to be." ^ 
" They must show the bad plainly, but not as an 
object of desire." ^ " If the effect of a story is 
to be lasting and emphatic it must carry on its 
face the strongest and clearest stamp of human 
greatness." ^ To these valuable suggestions, and 
many others of similar purport, may be traced the 
inspiration of that one great meritorious deed of 
Herbart's more radical disciples — their insistence 
upon the educational value of fairy tales, racial 
myths, and periods of history important to the 
development of the race " so far as a poet or 
historian has described them in a classical man- 
ner." ^ 

In his distinction of a series of studies for cog- 
nition, and a series for sympathy, Herbart simply 
reaffirmed the traditional practice of pedagogy 

^ Science of Education, Felkin's translation, p. 89. 

2 Ibid., p. 89. 3 Ibid., p. 88. « Ibid., p. 89. 

' Ziller, cited in Ufer's Pedagogy of Herbert, p. 73. Her- 
bart 's own series for sympathy is summed up as follows by 
Professor Eckoff: "The Homeric poems for childhood, his- 
toric writers for the growing boy, modern history for the 
youth approaching maturity, Platonic exclusiveness of 
aught however artistic, that might injure the moral picture 



HERB ART AND FROEBEL 131 

with its recognition of science and the humanities 
as the objective and subjective strands of educa- 
tion. In his discussions of these two series there 
is evident a deep insight into educational values. 
In endeavoring to provide for each series a foun- 
dation of primordial presentations he did original 
work, and to his honor be it remembered that he 
recognized in literature the most nearly accessible 
and best path of approach to all humane studies ; 
that he discouraged desultory object lessons; dis- 
cerned that the data of sense must be not only 
perceived but apperceived, and insisted upon 
mathematics as the true point of departure for 
the interpretation of nature. 

Herbart's alphabets of cognition and sympathy 
were designed for the use of children who had 
attained school age. The worst defect of his plan 
is its exclusive emphasis upon assimilative activ- 
ity, and its failure to provide any response to that 
demand for self-expression which is the most 
marked characteristic of childhood. This defect 
becomes still more apparent in the following sug- 

of the world which is to be unrolled step by step like the 
natural picture — such is Herbart's plan put into one sentence 
and crumpled somewhat in the packing. . . . Homer occupies 
the same position as the initial point in the education of the 
sympathetic nature that the A. B. C. of Sense-perception, 
whose mathematical nature will become perfectly plain as the 
reader studies it, occupies as the initial point in the cognitive 
education." — Herbert's A. B. C. of Sense- Perception, p. 85. 



132 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

gestions with regard to the education of younger 
children : 

I have suggested marking out with bright nails 
on a board the typical triangles and placing them con- 
tinuously within sight of the child in its cradle. I 
was laughed at. Well, people may laugh at me still 
more. For I, in thought, place near that board sticks 
and balls painted with various colors. I constantly 
change, combine, and vary these sticks, and later on 
plants and the child's playthings of every kind. I 
take a little organ into the nursery and sound simple 
tones and intervals on it for a minute at a time. I 
add a pendulum to it for the child's eye and for the 
unpracticed player's hand that its rhythmic propor- 
tions may be observed. I would further exercise the 
child's sense to distinguish cold and heat by the ther- 
mometer, and to estimate the degrees of heaviness by 
weights. Finally, I would send him to school with 
the cloth manufacturer to learn as correctly as he, to 
distinguish finer and coarser wool by touch. Yes, who 
knows whether I would not adorn the walls of the 
nursery with very large gayly painted letters. At the 
foundation of all this lies the simple thought that the 
abrupt and troublesome process of stamping things 
on the mind, called learning by heart, will be either 
not necessary, or very easy if only the elements of syn- 
thesis are early made constituent parts of the child's 
early experience.^ 

" What will I be doing while you are knocking 
me down ? " inquired a plucky youngster of the 

» Science of Education, Felkin's translation, pp. 158-59. 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 133 

older comrade who had threatened to lay him on 
the ground. I cannot read Herbart's suggestions 
with regard to the education of infancy without 
an irresistible impulse to paraphrase this query 
and ask, What will the child be doing while Her- 
bart is building him up ? Herbart's procedure is 
to be preferred to that of his more radical disci- 
ples because at least it avails itself of primordial 
presentations. Like theirs, however, it is a false 
procedure, because it conceives the educator as a 
builder, and the intellect and character of the 
pupil as something he may build. Furthermore, 
it conceives intellect as prior to and creative of 
feeling and will. Therefore : " Go to ; let us build 
thought-masses in the child and they will build 
him.'' 

The study of Herbart's pedagogics has been 
fruitful of good results, because it has directed 
attention to the process by which new experience 
is assimilated with previous knowledge, and old 
ideas reconstructed through new experience. The 
word apperception, which designates this assimi- 
lating and reconstructing process, stands for the 
most characteristic feature of the art of education 
as understood by Herbart, and suggests also his 
most important contribution to the science of edu- 
cation. When, however, we study his explanation 
of this process we are forced to admit that it has 
many serious defects. The more important of 



1^4 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

these defects are that he emphatically denies the 
spontaneous activity and structural form of the 
mind and thereby loses two apperceiving agencies 
of the highest value, and that he ignores the now 
generally admitted fact that no strong appercep- 
tion takes place without the conspiring influences 
of feeling and volition. It is his merit to have 
called widespread attention to an important proc- 
ess and to have aroused critical discussions as to 
its nature. It cannot be denied that his own de- 
scription of the process is very inadequate. 

JSTot only is Herbart's pedagogy rooted in an 
inadequate conception of the apperceiving process, 
but it is self -contradictory in its insistence upon 
many-sided interest as both the result of thought- 
masses and the agency through which they are 
created. Without interest, no circle of thought, 
and yet, without the circle of thought, no interest, 
for in it alone resides ^^ the initiative life, the 
primal energy." A debt of gratitude is due to 
Herbart for his recognition of the significance of 
interest or involuntary attention, but educators 
are now rapidly coming to see that for wise meth- 
ods of arousing and guiding interest they must 
turn to Froebel. 

The pedagogy of Herbart is intimately con- 
nected with a pluralistic ontology and a mechan- 
ical psychology. He conceives ultimate reality 
as a plenum of independent monads, yet for some 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 135 

reason, perhaps because of the exigency of explan- 
ation/ perhaps because his own mind was con- 
trolled by an apperceptive mass in which the idea 
of relativity was dominant, he admits some com- 
munion between these mutually excluding reals. 
In accord with his ontology and his apperception 
mass " his psychology is of the association type." ^ 
The soul is a psychic monad devoid of all capa- 
city, except that of self-defense against the attacks 
of other monads. ^' Its deed of self-defense pro- 
duces presentations,'^ and with their production 
its activity ceases forever, and everything that 
afterwards goes on within it is due to the energy 
of its " naturalized assailants." ^ " The self is a 
result of the union and interpenetration of pre- 
sentations. In their totality these presentations 
form the intellect. The furtherance or suppres- 
sion of one presentation by another gives rise to 

* " Herbart's method is to make any assumption whatever 
that will bring harmony and consistency into our thinking 
without regard to the explicability of the assumptions them- 
selves." — Herbart and the Herbartians, p. 27, 

2 The Educational Theories of Herbart and Froebel, John 
Angus MacVannel, p. 62. 

3 "The soul at first is merely blank formal unity of which 
nothing can be said excepting that it can act in self-defence ; 
the soul shows its character by what it does in the struggle for 
existence. Its peculiar mode of self-defence is a sensation 
or presentation. It admits presentations to its domain. 
Admission proves to be occupation. Its former assailants are 
so to speak naturalized as ideas." — Jbid., p. 62, 



136 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

feeling in its two forms of pleasure and pain. 
The successful struggle of a presentation against 
others that tend to suppress it is desire," ^ and 
^' Will is desire combined with the supposition 
that it can be fulfilled." ^ In short, at Lotze puts 
it, "Everything further that happens in it, the for- 
mation of its conceptions, the development of the 
various faculties, the settlement of the principles 
on which it acts are all mechanical results which, 
when once these primary self-preservations have 
been aroused, follow from their own reactions; 
and the soul, the arena on which all this takes 
place, never shows itself volcanic and irritable 
enough to interfere by new reactions with the play 
of its states, and to give them such new directions 
as do not follow analytically from them accord- 
ing to the universal laws of their reciprocal ac- 
tions." 3 

Several insistent questions torment the reflec- 
tive mind as it ponders Herbart's ontologic and 
psychologic assumptions. If the soul can natural- 
ize attacking monads as presentations, must there 
not be between it and them some degree of par- 
ticipation, and does not participation in any de- 
gree imply a transcendent including unity? If 

» Herbart's Doctrine of Interest, Wm. T- Harris. 

2 Text Book of Psychology, Herbart, p. 82. In. Ed. Series. 

3 Lotze, cited in The Educational Theories of Herbart and 
Froebel, by John Angus MacVannel, p. 70. (Italics mine.) 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 137 

the soul is devoid of activity, where does it get 
energy to defend itself against its assailants ? If 
it has even a minimum of energy to start with, 
why does it lose it after its one great act of self- 
defense ? And finally, if the self is a product of 
free and independent ideas which, for some in- 
explicable reason, have a continuous tendency to 
assimilate, why assume a soul substance as the 
arena of their wars, treaties, and alliances ? ^ 

The most characteristic feature alike of Her- 
bart's ontology, his psychology, and his peda- 
gogy is an almost exclusive emphasis upon assimi- 
lative processes. There would seem to be a close 
connection between this emphasis and his own 
experience. He knew nothing in life but learn- 
ing and teaching. We read that as a child he 
showed extraordinary power of understanding 
and remembering the thoughts of others." ^ He 
himself tells us that " Filling the mind, this it is 
which before all other more detailed purposes 
ought to be the general result of instruction." ^ 
Out of the assimilated knowledge of the past will 
spring that sympathy with and conformity to con- 
ventional standards of action which is apparently 

' See The Educational Theories of Herbart and Froebel, 
John Angus MacVannel, pp. 62, 63; 69, 70. 

2 Science of Education, Felkin. Introduction by the 
translators, p. 2. 

3 Ibid., p. 192. 



138 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

what Herbart understands by morality. Emer- 
son reminds us how necessary it is to discriminate 
between the thinker and man thinking. No less 
important is it to discriminate between the teacher 
and man teaching. Herbart was thinker and 
teacher, not man thinking and teaching. Hence 
the challenge of world-transforming events failed 
to provoke in him any adequate response, and he 
lived through one of the most sublime periods of 
history not only without comprehension of its 
meaning but without that thrill of excitement 
and joy which in all susceptible sou*ls prophesies 
the birth of a new era. 

Never surely has there lived a man less respon- 
sive than Herbart to the spirit of his age. It 
was an age which, by smiting men's eyes with that 
greatest of all object lessons, the French Revolu- 
tion, wakened them to knowledge of the fact that 
mind had attained its majority and that hence- 
forth neither could intellect be appeased with 
tradition, nor will with convention. Great heroes 
of contemplation were wrestling with the problems 
implicit in this revolution of the popular con- 
sciousness and were solving them by creating 
a philosophy which sanctifies historic achieve- 
ment as a cumulative revelation of the divine 
principle in man, and blazes a path of historic 
progress by demonstrating the necessity of insti- 
tutions for the realization of freedom. Stung to 



HERBART AxND FROEBEL 139 

high resolve by the defeat of Jena and the Treaty 
of Tilsit, Germany was rising as one man to 
throw off a hateful yoke, and in repelling the in- 
vader from her soil was accomplishing that first 
great deed of national self-making, whose consum- 
mation has been the imperial union of all German 
states. With lightning flash of thought and 
voice of thunder, Fichte was making his country- 
men aware that " Will is the efficient living prin- 
ciple of the world of reason, as motion is the 
efficient living principle of the world of sense.'' 
Goethe was startling Germany to far surmises by 
painting its portrait as a melancholy and inef- 
fective youth wandering in aimless dreams be- 
tween the natural and supernatural worlds, and, 
retranslating the heart of the Xew Testament, 
was writing with the pen of Faust " In the be- 
ginning was the act." And in the midst of all 
the mighty stir and tumult of a revolution which 
in every sphere was dethroning abstract intel- 
lect and enthroning concrete deed, Herbart was 
sitting peacefully in his study or among his pupils 
building up thought-masses out of primordial pre- 
sentations, and shaping standard character out of 
assimilated ideas! 

In striking contrast to Herbart's detachment 
from the life of the world was Froebel's enthu- 
siastic response to the revolution taking place in 
popular feeling and striving to define itself in 



140 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

philosophy. The impulse of his age surged in 
him when as a mere youth he wrote in the jour- 
nal of a philanthropic friend, " You work to give 
men bread; be it the effort of my life to give 
men themselves^ The ideal of his age had clari- 
fied itself in his mind when he defined the final 
aim of education, not as morality, but as free- 
dom. The method of education implicit in this 
aim had revealed itself to him when in 1828 he 
wrote to Krause : '^ In doing must all true edu- 
cation begin ; in the deed must it be rooted ; from 
the deed must it grow ; out of the living, creative, 
self-observant and self-penetrating deed must it 
develop." ^ The remainder of his life was devoted 
to working out in practice the demands of this 
aim and method. An education whose method is 
to be rooted in creative and therefore free activity 
must necessarily begin with the beginning of life. 
Hence Froebel who had commenced his profes- 
sional career as a teacher of boys ends it as the 
founder of the kindergarten and the author of the 
Mother-Play. 

The two insights which enabled Froebel to 
create the kindergarten, were insight into the 
ideal values of human life as concrete expressions 
of the substance of freedom, and insight into play 
as that activity of childhood which achieves most 
perfectly the form of freedom. Play has a per- 

» Aus Froebel's Leben, p. 141. 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 141 

sistent form and a manifold content. Froebel 
borrowed its form and selected from its content. 
He wished to preserve the spontaneity which dis- 
tinguishes play from work. He wished to abet the 
struggle of the soul toward concrete freedom by 
selecting from among the native plays of child- 
hood those which are related to the ideal values of 
human life. 

The antithesis between work and play has been 
often defined, but seems to be ever and anon prac- 
tically ignored. Work is something done for a 
purpose. Play is something done for the pleas- 
ure of doing it. Without work, in which he 
holds himself to his set purpose, man would never 
learn to subordinate his whims and caprices. 
Without play, in which free rein is given to his 
own initiative, he could never develop individual- 
ity. Even in adult life alternations of work and 
play are necessary to physical health, mental san- 
ity, and moral poise. In infancy and early child- 
hood, or, to be specific, until the child is three and 
a half or four years old individuality is so feeble 
that without constant free and undirected play 
it would languish and die. The infant must 
spend much time doing just as he pleases, in or- 
der that he may ever please to be something or 
somebody in particular. At the age of three or 
four years, however, he enters a transition state 
which ordinarily lasts until the age of six. If 



142 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

throughout this period of transition he does noth- 
ing but exercise his powers according to his mo- 
mentary whim he becomes so capricious and self- 
willed that later it is difficult to waken in him 
any sense of participation in a social whole, or 
any reverence for the larger human experience. 
If, on the other hand, he is forced to work dur- 
ing this fluid period, individuality is enfeebled 
and originality sapped. He needs a method of 
education which, preserving intact the form of 
freedom, shall fill this form with the substance 
of freedom. To provide this mediatorial edu- 
cation is the specific function of the kinder- 
garten. 

It is said that some years ago the roots of grape- 
vines in the wine-producing regions of Europe 
had become so weak through overcultivation that 
they lost all power of resisting the attacks of cer- 
tain parasites.^ Strength was renewed by grafting 
the highly developed vine upon the stock of the 
American " Concord '' grape, a variety recently 
developed from the wild grape. The success of 
the experiment was due to the fact that there was 
identity of species between the scion and the graft. 
Grapevines could not have been successfully 
grafted upon oaks, but highly developed vines 
could be grafted upon their own ancestral stock. 

» The Philoxera vastatrix appeared in 1863 and soon after 
spread to all the grape-bearing countries of Europe. 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 143 

In like manner the kindergarten seeks the renewal 
and development of physical, mental, and moral 
strength by grafting upon the native manifesta- 
tions of childhood as expressed in play, the higher 
realization of their own implicit ideal. 

Through his study of the different forms of 
childish play Froebel became aware of the fact 
that some of them point toward the practical arts, 
some toward the fine arts, some toward science 
and literature, and some toward the ethical life 
of man as incarnated in social institutions. In 
these creations of the human spirit Froebel found 
his standards of value. In different native forms 
of play he recognized the germinal tendencies of 
which these values are the higher expression. To 
guide the spontaneous energies of play over those 
paths which lead most directly toward the sum- 
mits of ideal achievement was his confessed aim. 
His aspiration was to help children to do better 
what they themselves were trying to do, and be- 
cause his instrumentalities and methods conspire 
to produce this result his disciples claim that he 
has transformed play into education.^ 

Whoso understands the general purpose and 
method of the kindergarten will also understand 

> In Chapter II of this book I have attempted to give a 
general outhne of Froebel's plan. Kindergartners are asked 
to re-read that chapter in connection with the definition of 
Froebel's purpose given in the present chapter. 



144 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the complete accord of FroebeFs spirit with the 
spirit of his age. As has been said, it was an age 
in which, for the first time in history, man became 
intimately aware of his own freedom. Its primal 
deed was the Emancipation Proclamation of 
Mind declaring that thereafter neither intellect 
nor will should bow to any external authority. 
Its second great deed was the transubstantiation 
of authority into freedom by the discovery of its 
inborn rationality. In exact correspondence with 
these two achievements of the Zeitgeist are Froe- 
heVs two revelations to education. The first of 
these revelations is that children shall no longer 
be shaped and fashioned by outside pressure, but 
shall be abetted in their native effort to develop 
through self-expression. The second and no less 
important revelation is that in many of their fa- 
vorite plays what they express are generic im- 
pulses, and that, therefore, through freighting 
play with the values of human life we enable chil- 
dren to realize more rapidly and surely their own 
impelling ideal. 

The preceding brief statement of FroebeFs edu- 
cational aim and method suggests the striking 
contrast between his procedure and that of Her- 
bart. This practical contrast is rooted in a con- 
trasting psychology. As has been indicated, the 
fundamental thesis of Herbart's psychology is 
that presentations are the elements of mental life, 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 145 

and the self a product of their fusion. The psy- 
chology of Froebel, on the contrary, holds that 
the self is an aboriginal energy whose ideal form 
is self-consciousness, and whose history is a pro- 
gressive realization and definition of its own im- 
plications. Self -consciousness is the knowing of 
the self, by the self, and such knowing implies 
both the distinction of subject and object, and the 
recognition of their identity. The life of the ego 
is therefore a process of continuous self-diremp- 
tion, and of the reintegration of its dirempted ele- 
ments in a synthetic unity. 

Since the ego is not a mere something which 
incidentally possesses activity, but is self-activity, 
and nothing but self-activity, its primal and con- 
straining impulse must be action, and it will rush 
outward into deed. Self-expression will precede 
assimilation and determine what shall be assimi- 
lated. For this reason Froebel seeks the point of 
departure for education in play which he defines 
as " self-active representation of the inner life, 
from inner necessity and impulse." 

The opposition between Herbart and Froebel 
indicated in their pedagogics and defined in the 
contrasting theses of their respective psychologies, 
may be traced to an emotional root in the impene- 
trable coldness of the one and the fervid response 
of the other to the mood of a wonderful age, and 

to an intellectual root in the antithetic concep- 
11 



146 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

tions of ultimate reality which are the thought- 
precipitates of these contradictory emotional at- 
titudes. To the atomic system of Herbart, which 
regards the universe as an aggregate of monads 
(and therefore not a universe at all), Froebel op- 
poses an ontology whose creative idea is that ulti- 
mate reality is absolute reason or perfectly real- 
ized self-consciousness. It is true that Froebel 
must be classed as a mystic, and a mystic is a 
person who is making an inward transition from 
faith to philosophy by beginning to realize in the 
typical facts of religion a universal significance. 
Being a mystic Froebel never achieved a scientific 
statement of his ontologic convictions. Neverthe- 
less, his writings make evident that in a more 
or less adequate form he was aware of the several 
great implications of absolute self-consciousness. 
These implications are a perfect subject who has 
eternally duplicated himself in a perfect object; 
a manifold cosmos pervaded by law and objecti- 
fying the infinite multiplicity of distinctions 
pervaded by the unity of divine thinking; an evo- 
lutionary ascent of nature determined by increas- 
ing participation in the divine first principle and 
culminating in man in whom is incarnate the 
form of self -consciousness, which is freedom; 
finally, the progressive realization by man of the 
substance of freedom through a social communion 
made possible by the fact that since every man 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 147 

partakes of absolute reason, all men may and 
should be partakers of each other. ^ 

Froebel's psychology is that of the great think- 
ers who achieved the highest triumph of human 
intellect. His own more modest " acts of orig- 
inality " are a study of childhood wherein its 
manifestations are interpreted by the light of the 
idea of self-activity; a method of early education 
respondent to these interpreted manifestations, 
and a series of instrumentalities indispensable for 
the reduction of the method into practice. Only 
as the kindergarten games and gifts are studied 
in detail does the student realize the rich contri- 
bution of Froebel's psychology to his pedagogics. 
From his conception of the child as a self-creative 
being flowed his emphasis upon the priority of the 
deed. From insight into the truth that institu- 
tions, arts, sciences, and literature are self-defini- 
tions of the mind in which all individuals par- 
ticipate sprang his idea of freighting the plays 
of childhood with the values of life. From his 
doctrine of the ascent of mind from the fact 
through the symbol to the general idea arose his 
accent upon imitative games, typical objects, acts, 
processes, and characters, and the natural ana- 
logues of elementary human experiences. From 
the assurance that self-consciousness implies self- 
duplication proceeded his idea of presenting to 

» See Chapter XII. 



148 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the child in each stage of development an objec- 
tive counterpart. From conviction of the neces- 
sity of objectifying the unity of consciousness, its 
structural form^ and its manifold content sprang 
the three types of exercise known as forms of 
knowledge, beauty, and life. And to give only 
one more illustration, from the vision of self- 
consciousness as '^ an identity pervading its own 
distinctions,'' was born the attempt to make the 
instrumentalities of the kindergarten an organism 
wherein each member should be means and end 
for all the other members, and for the including 
whole. 

No man can be so mightily possessed by an idea 
as was Froebel without being betrayed into some 
exaggerations. The enlightened lover of the kin- 
dergarten will crave criticism of his mistakes, as 
well as recognition of his merits. But criticism, 
to be sound and valuable, demands a practical 
knowledge of the way in which his instrumen- 
talities are used, which thus far few if any of 
his critics have possessed. It must be conceded 
that his effort is unique and his results original. 
In his interpretations of childhood he surpasses 
not only all his contemporaries, but all his suc- 
cessors. By freighting play with ideal values he 
created a type of education which respects both 
the form and the substance of freedom. By rec- 
ognizing the supreme value of that kind of ap- 



HERBART AND FROEBEL 149 

perception which is dependent on the nature of 
the mind, he made a signal contribution to edu- 
cational psychology. It would be his own dearest 
wish that others should do better what he has done 
so well. But he must be overtaken before he can 
be left behind. 



CHAPTEE VI 

THE FKEE-PLAY PROGRAMME 

The most lucid expression of the free-play 
programme, and the most complete illustration 
of its practical workings are to be found in a 
monograph entitled The Kindergarten Problem 
which was published in 1899. The preface to the 
monograph describes it as "a report upon one 
year's work in a kindergarten system which had 
broken somewhat with tradition." The conditions 
causing the break, and the general plan adopted, 
in order to bring new life into the Proebelian val- 
ley of dry bones, are clearly stated in the following 
extract : 

The conviction, for years latent and urgent for 
recognition, that free play is the only rational solu- 
tion to Froebel's plea for self-activity, the undoubted 
truth of the revelations of child study with regard to 
the ancestral and racial traits of childhood, led to the 
adoption of two recess periods of twenty minutes each 
for spontaneous play in the kindergartens, to take the 
place of the regular kindergarten games, and the 
150 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 151 

eagerness with which the play incentives were appro- 
priated and put into active service by the children re- 
vealed the strength of their interests. At first, but 
few incentives were given, owing to ignorance of the 
best incentives for their use, but as observation and 
experience strengthened theory, the list gradually in- 
creased and modified the original provision made. 
To a few bean bags, tin street cars, wooden soldiers, 
and a cloth elephant, whose only recommendation for 
popularity was his obliging disposition in sacrificing 
his dignity by becoming a football, and who was res- 
cued from the sure fate which overtakes all who tam- 
per with the game, have been added in the order 
named, sand piles, dolls, toy dishes, toy brooms and 
dustpans, toy washboards, reins, gas balls, hammers 
and nails, garden tools, footballs, facilities for climb- 
ing, jumping, seesaws, swings, and the latest achieve- 
ment, a children's playhouse, where the tiny house- 
keepers can keep the miniature family in the most 
approved manner, and still have the benefit of the 
fresh air and sunshine. 

The bean bags, the wooden soldiers, the tin street 
cars, and his lordship, the elephant, have been con- 
signed to the oblivion of deserved rest — but the sand 
piles have still the busy chattering groups of little 
ones, digging wells and tunnels, molding and baking 
in the sun the succulent pies and cakes so well known 
to our own happy childhood, sifting the clean, dry, 
fascinating sand until the sudden temptation to send 
a mimic cyclonic deluge over unsuspecting comrades 
is only diverted into more legitimate channels by the 
prompt action of the ever-vigilant and ever-present 
kindergartner. 

The dolls, the toy dishes, brooms, washboards, and 



152 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

flatirons have a full share of attention from girls and 
boys alike. The house is swept and garnished, in 
the enthusiasm of play, some children considerately 
sprinkling sand upon the floor, that the broom may 
have excuse for action; the doll clothes are washed 
vigorously in the sand with washboard and wooden 
soap, and ironed while the iron is cold; the dishes 
are washed and dried with imaginary water and tow- 
els; the dolls are washed and dressed, one-eyed Rosie, 
of long-suffering visage and pathetically dangling ap- 
pearance being cuddled and loved and lullabied with 
the fairest in the land ; while the hostess sets the table, 
not omitting the tiny vase of weedy blossoms gathered 
for the purpose, and proceeds to serve to the sedate 
and expectant guests a banquet fit for the gods. 
Sand is the basis and inspiration of the entire menu, 
and the dignity and propriety of the occasion is not 
marred by any ungeemly behavior, or the necessity for 
correction to the verge of tears — there is no painted 
line here to say, " Thou shalt not." 

This seems like cooperative housekeeping, but no 
such adult occupation is in reality the case. Each 
child is entirely absorbed in her own particular bit of 
drama, and cares not a whit about the success of the 
whole. 

Meanwhile, fiery steeds, restless chargers, and good, 
safe family horses are being driven about the grounds, 
with long grass tucked under the hat brims for manes, 
with tinkling bells, and drivers with healthily exer- 
cised lungs to keep them in subjection; bread, milk, 
and vegetables are delivered without money and with- 
out price to all who may ask. Without rest, or the 
usual variation of eating and sleeping, with only an 
occasional visit to the blacksmith for repairs, these 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 153 

horses and their remorseless drivers, like Tennyson's 
brook, " go on forever." ^ 

Whatever else this description may or may not 
be it is undoubtedly a correct presentation of the 
ideal of perfectly free play. Each child is to do 
what he pleases as he pleases. We observe, how- 
ever, that free play is relegated to the recess pe- 
riod, and taken in detachment from the rest of 
the monograph, the passage cited merely provokes 
doubt as to the advisability of forty minutes for 
recess during a total period of only three hours. 
The real issue, however, between the traditional 
kindergarten and the child-study reformers is not 
whether there shall be free play during recess, but 
whether the entire three hours children spend in 
the kindergarten shall become a recess dominated 
by this ideal. That the answer given to this ques- 
tion by the Santa Barbara experimenters is an 
almost unqualified affirmative is evident from the 
following record of two days in a kindergarten: 

Monday: The morning being pleasant, we had our 
marching and singing outdoors. One child was 
chosen captain, the others following where he led. 

» A Study of the Kindergarten Problem in the Public Kin- 
dergartens of Santa Barbara, California, for the year 1898-99, 
by Frederic Burk, Ph.D., City Superintendent of Schools and 
Caroline Frear Burk, A.M., in cooperation with Orpha M. 
Quayle, Supervisor of Kindergartens, Juliet Powell Rice, 
Supervisor of Music, and Martha D. Tallant. pp. 38, 39. 



154 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

There was single-file marching, double-file marching, 
straight-line marching, curved-line marching, slow 
marching, fast marching, and every other kind of 
marching that could be thought of hy one little hrain. 
After the marching came free-choice singing^ the 
children volunteering their favorite songs. 

At 9.30 they all marched into the schoolroom, and 
at the signal from the piano took their seats and sat 
waiting for the usual morning story. This morning 
the story was of The Wolf and the Crane. As the 
children had seen the pictures of both a wolf and a 
crane among their collection of colored pictures, they 
thought that those were surely the originals of the 
story. After the telling of the story, the children 
were ashed to illustrate it on paper. After the illus- 
trations they were given five minutes for free drawing 
at the hoard. 

From 10.05 to 10.25 recess was given. As usual, the 
football took a prominent place in the games, as did 
also sand-huilding, swinging, and 'jumping. 

From 10.25 to 10.30 was occupied in marching 
to the seats and resting, the piano being played 
very softly, while all the little heads rested on the 
tables. 

From 10.30 to 10.50 was devoted to color work, the 
children placing on a string first all beads of one 
color; next, beads of another color, and so on until 
all six colors were used. This they all did very read- 
ily, with the exception of one little boy, who is appar- 
ently color-blind. 

From 10.50 to 10.55 the children were allowed to 
look at a collection of scrap books which had been 
given them and to converse freely about them. 

11.05 to 11.25, recess. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 155 

11.25 to 11.30, marching to seats and resting. 

11.30 to 11.50, free play with any of the kindergar- 
ten material which each individual chose. 

11.50 to 12, they put away the material and sang the 
closing song. 

Tuesday: The school opened with free marchings^ 
after which the children sang chosen songs. 

At 9.30 the children took their seats, when the story 
of The Dog and the Bone was told them. Then 
they illustrated the story on paper and told it. Before 
the hour closed five minutes were devoted to circle 
drawing on the board, using the free-arm movement. 

10.05 to 10.25, recess. 

The day was foggy, so the greater number of the 
little girls stayed inside and played house, while the 
majority of the little boys and girls on the ground 
enjoyed climbing upon the fence and jumping down 
into the sand. A few of the boys played football, 
and two little girls played with the swings. 

10.25 to 10.30, they marched to seats and rested. 
(This rest^ period seems very beneficial, as with very 
little exception the children seem to enter into the 
spirit of it.) 

10.30 to 10.50, number lesson. I gave them a piece 
of clay, then, drawing three circles on the board, told 
them to make that number of marbles. After the les- 
son they were permitted to make anything they 
wished from the clay. 

10.50 to 11.05, a collection of bird pictures was 
looked at and talked about. The pictures had been 
put away for several days, consequently were enjoyed 
more than usual. 

11.05 to 11.25, recess. Again the fence- climbing and 
jumping were indulged in to a great extent. 



156 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

11.25 to 11.30, marching and rest. 
11.30 to 11.50, free play!' 

Is it possible to conceive a programme in which 
the ideal of free play could be more consistently 
carried out. The marching was free, the singing 
was free, the selection of games was free, the 
choice of material was free, the method of using 
it was free, the illustrations of stories were free, 
and lest all this freedom should be insufficient for 
purposes of development, there were given, both 
days, two recess periods of twenty minutes each. 
There is not a single word in the diary to suggest 
that any effort was made to lead the children to 
build better, draw better, model better, or do any- 
thing better than they were originally able to do. 
The only inconsistencies in the two days' record 
are the twenty minutes spent in stringing beads, 
and the ^ve minutes presumably required to make 
three marbles. With these exceptions the chil- 
dren did nothing but amuse themselves or suffer 
themselves to be amused by the kindergartner. 
It may be added that even the stringing and 
marble-making exercises were practically effort- 
less. 

Ignoring for the moment the self-refuting dia- 
lectic of the free-play theory as expounded by 

'The Kindergarten Problem, pp. 118-20. (Italics mine.) 
— Alice L. Blackford. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 157 

its advocates, and assuming that the freedom 
claimed were possible, let us frankly recognize 
that to carry out this theory would mean not a 
modification of the historic kindergarten but a 
complete revolution of its principles and prac- 
tices. The institution which Froebel originated 
was conceived by him as a transition from the 
nursery to the school. The nursery is a place for 
free play. The school is a place for work. The 
kindergarten is a mediatorial realm wherein a 
transition is made from play to work. As was 
explained in the preceding chapter of this book, 
the transition is effected by grafting upon selected 
plays which reveal germinal tendencies toward 
the values of human life the higher expression 
of theij- own ideal. The value of the graft is 
two-fold. It develops the mind through its own 
free impulsion. It renews the energy of ideals 
which had been paralyzed by their external im- 
position. The values of life must not be conceived 
as artificial flowers fastened by some external 
hand upon a plant which could never have pro- 
duced them, but as the perfect blossom in which 
the plant completes its life and provides for its 
own renewal.^ 

Contrasting the free-play programme with the 
concentric programme we become aware that each 
is the fruit of a partial conception of the child. 

» See Chapter V, pp. 140-144. 



158 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

The concentric programme conceives him as pre- 
ponderantly a learning being, and thereby retreats 
from the position of Froebel to that of the tra- 
ditional schoolmaster. The free-play programme 
conceives him as a sentient being who reacts upon 
stimuli from his environment, and by its claim 
that there must be no interference with " the 
primal hereditary impulsions " retreats from the 
position of Froebel to that of Rousseau. The 
Froebelian programme harmonizes the mutually 
excluding conceptions of established education 
and educational reform by accentuating those 
modes of self-expression which reveal and confirm 
generic selfhood. 

A revolution in principle must revolutionize 
practice, and a revolutionized practice must de- 
mand changed instrumentalities. The Santa Bar- 
bara experimenters were convinced that " abso- 
lutely free play is the only rational solution to 
FroebeFs plea for self -activity.'' The first result 
of this changed conviction was the addition of 
numerous instrumentalities, e. g., seesaws, swings, 
climbing poles, and promiscuous toys, supposed to 
be necessary as " play incentives." The second 
result was a decision that " the kindergarten is 
loaded down with an unsifted mass of material 
which has been chosen by the adult mind as suit- 
able for the logical development of the child." ^ 

» The Kindergarten Problem, p. 81. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 159 

It was therefore deemed necessary to discover the 
spontaneous reaction of children toward the tradi- 
tional kindergarten materials, and a test experi- 
ment was made which our monograph describes 
as follows : 

Every day for half an hour the kindergarten mate- 
rials, the gifts and occupations, were spread on a 
table, and each child chose what one thing he cared 
to play with for that time. At first the idea was car- 
ried out in the form of a play; the table and its con- 
tents were supposed to be a store, and the children 
came, and, using the tablets or parquetry circles for 
money, bought what they wanted, so that that half 
hour of the day came to be known as " store time," a 
name which clung to it long after the " store " idea 
was reduced simply to the less romantic " free-choice 
time." Each child took his material to his seat, as a 
rule, and there did what he pleased with it.^ 

The results of this effort to determine by a " sci- 
entific '' test the interest of children in the dif- 
ferent materials of the kindergarten demand our 
careful consideration. The materials preferred 
by the younger children stated in the order of 
preference were beads, clay, the sewing card, the 
tile board, parquetry, blocks, and the first gift. 
The per cent of choices for blocks and balls were, 
however, very small, being in each case only seven 
per cent (7^), as opposed to nineteen per cent 

» The Kindergarten Problem, p. 81. 



160 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

(19^) for beads, eighteen per cent (18^) for clay, 
thirteen and one half per cent (13J^) for the 
sewing card, ten and one half per cent (10^^) for 
the tile board, and ten per cent (10^) for par- 
quetry. With the older children there was less 
variety of selection, forty-one per cent (41^) of 
all choices being given to the sewing card, and 
twenty-nine per cent (29^) to clay. The remain- 
ing thirty choices were scattering, the only gifts 
or occupations which received more than three 
choices being parquetry, eight choices, and blocks, 
six choices. 

The choices of the younger children are readily 
explained. They were naturally attracted by ma- 
terials whose possibilities were obvious. They 
could see at once something to be done with beads, 
clay, tile boards, blocks, and balls. Sewing and 
parquetry offer fewer technical difficulties than 
many other occupations, and hence are generally 
among the first into whose use children are in- 
itiated. The choices of the second-year children 
force the conclusion that there had been lack of 
intelligent guidance. These children had not been 
led to discover the richer possibilities of the build- 
ing gifts, hence the chart shows a waning interest 
in blocks instead of the waxing interest which 
thirty years of collective experience justifies us in 
expecting. Tablets, sticks, and rings, whose varied 
uses children need help to find, were scarcely 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 161 

chosen at all; cutting, now almost universally 
admitted to be one of the most popular, as well 
as one of the most educative occupations of the 
kindergarten, was chosen by only three children. 
On the other hand, the sewing card received forty- 
one (41) choices, a preponderance which expe- 
rienced kindergartners cannot forbear to connect 
with the fact that of all occupations, sewing is 
the one which, after its few technical difficulties 
are overcome, can be given with least strain upon 
the director; which, for this reason, tends to be 
constantly declined upon by easy-going kinder- 
gartners, and in which, therefore, children most 
often become capable of creative work. On the 
whole, the experiment in Santa Barbara would 
seem to have tested the ability of kindergartners 
rather than the interests of children, and the judg- 
ment the student is forced to pass upon it is, that 
it failed in the essential conditions of a scientific 
experiment, because it did not eliminate disturb- 
ing influences. It may be added that such elim- 
ination is practically impossible in a test of the 
kind attempted. The jumble of different mate- 
rials distracts unstable minds, and predisposes to 
imperative or vacillating choices. The fact that 
some of the occupations which children like best 
after they have learned to use them do not ap- 
peal to them at all until they have learned to use 
them, makes the test of immediate choice unfair 
12 



162 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

and misleading. The defects of directors create 
disturbing influences of the most serious kinds. 
Finally, the director's own judgments of value are 
sure to react upon her children.^ The Santa 
Barbara experiment, for example, was made at a 
time when the minds of revolutionary kinder- 
gartners were under the spell of critics who had 
raised a mighty hue and cry against the geome- 
try of FroebeFs gifts. Therefore, out of a total 
of two hundred choices only thirteen were given 
to building blocks, and one and one third to the 
second gift. Since that time innovating kinder- 
gartners have convinced themselves that material 
which permits representation in three dimensions 
is preferable to material which permits only rep- 
resentation in the flat. In swift conformity to 
this changed point of view children's tastes now 
incline graciously toward the solid gifts — and 
even the despised and rejected sphere, cube, and 
cylinder is restored to a place of honor. The 
practical conclusion to which we are forced by 
these facts is that, if further test of the Froe- 
belian instrumentalities is necessary, the only 
reasonable test is the gradually accumulating 
experience of the collective body of kindergart- 
ners. The results of this test as carried out dur- 

» In later test experiments the jumble of kindergarten 
materials has been avoided. The other disturbing influences, 
however, remain in full force. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 163 

ing the past thirty-five years would seem to give 
a priority of both interest and value to building 
blocks, cutting, drawing, coloring, clay work, par- 
quetry, and sewing. It is, however, a non sequi- 
tur conclusion that because these occupations lead 
in interest and value all others are devoid of in- 
terest and valueless. The interest and value of 
tablets, sticks, rings, folding, weaving, and card- 
board modeling are very little less than the interest 
and value of the occupations already mentioned, 
and, finally, even those Froebelian instrumentali- 
ties which possess the minimum of interest and 
value cannot be entirely discarded without loss to 
the child and some degree of failure to realize the 
ideal of the kindergarten as a wise transition from 
the nursery to the schoolroom. 

It is too often forgotten that the traditional ma- 
terial of the kindergarten is justified by the re- 
sults of test experiments carried out through cen- 
turies. Balls, building blocks, and materials for 
arrangement games have commended themselves 
to the taste of children and the judgment of par- 
ents all over the world and through the ages. An 
equally extended range of experience justifies 
simple folding, weaving, twisting, or intertwin- 
ing and embroidery, and as for the sand pile, clay, 
pencil, paper, and coloring material, the evidence 
in favor both of their value and their appeal is 
surely sufficient to satisfy the most skeptical. 



164 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

There are so many things still to be found out 
that it seems foolishness to waste time discov- 
ering the already known, and settling the already 
established. 

To the criticisms thus far made upon the test 
experiment in Santa Barbara some readers may 
raise the objection that the free-choice period was 
a temporary device, and that doubtless when its 
results were attained the jumble of kindergarten 
materials was discontinued and the planless meth- 
od of allowing each child to do as he pleased with 
the object of his capricious election was set aside 
in favor of a more rational procedure. Our mono- 
graph will not permit us to solace ourselves with 
this false comfort. The experimenting kinder- 
gartners, we are told, are eager to keep up the 
free-choice period for its effect upon the children, 
and they ^' pity the poor little starved, straight- 
laced mortals who are restricted to the paltry 
pabulum of the dictation exercise." As we read 
this statement a doubt arises in our minds, which 
further study of the Kindergarten Problem con- 
firms. Its authors know. only the crude antithesis 
between free play and dictation, and suppose 
that children must either do exactly as they please, 
or exactly as the kindergartner prescribes. The 
mediatorial methods of the kindergarten — the 
method of transit from imitation toward orig- 
inality; the method of suggested subject which, 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 165 

by eliminating indecision as to what shall be 
done concentrates attention on how it shall be 
done, and leaves children free to work out their 
own plan of procedure; the method of free ini- 
tiative with expert reaction, the inciting method 
of the simple problem, the sympathetic method of 
class or group work, wherein each child profits by 
the ideas of his fellows, are all conspicuous by 
their absence. In my judgment, lack of knowl- 
edge of these mediatorial methods explains the 
dissatisfaction of many kindergartners with the 
instrumentalities of Froebel. 

The first fallacy which created the so-called 
/ree-play movement was the conception of the kin- 
dergarten as " a substitute for childish play in 
its totality. '^ It is with this fallacy alone that our 
discussion has thus far been concerned. The 
constant juxtaposition of free play with play in- 
centives suggests a second fallacy which appar- 
ently exercises compelling influence over the au- 
thors of the Kindergarten Problem. This second 
fallacy is the conception of the child as a creature 
wholly dominated by instinct, and therefore a 
slave to the suggestions of environment. " The 
system of Dame Instinct," we are told, is quite 
as complete as most systems furnished by the log- 
ical adult, " and not half so stupid, either." ^ . . . 

» The Kindergarten Problem, p. 44. 



166 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

" Instinct, however, is not the only factor to be 
considered. Environment is equally important. 
For instinct often remains dormant unless the 
incentive furnished by the environment and nee 
essary to the development of the instinct is pres- 
ent. . . . Environment given, instinct becomes 
a selective agent." * Hence, all kindergarten 
gifts are offered as " incentives," and bean bags, 
tin street cars, wooden soldiers, cloth elephant, 
dolls, dishes, dustpans, washboards, flatirons, 
reins, hammers, garden tools, footballs, seesaws, 
and swings presented in motley array either arrest 
development by delivering little victims of sug- 
gestion over to the slavery of imperative impulse, 
or create vacillating wills by provoking a desul- 
tory and constantly changing activity.^ 

Among the more important facts to which 
modern psychology has called attention are the 
pathologic conditions arising from disorganiza- 
tion of the will. Hypochondria is an acute form 

» The Kindergarten Problem, p. 45. 

2 "The introduction of some simple reins of red tape with 
bells has spread the enthusiasm for horse like wildfire. . . . 
These horses and their remorseless drivers, like Tennyson's 
brook, 'go on forever.'" — Ibid., pp. 45 and 39. "Rubber 
balls were furnished freely and were the germs of a chronic 
and incurable disease of ball-playing. ... A box of toys 
has lately been placed in the yard of one of the kinder- 
gartens and a general rush is made for this at every recess." 
— Ibid., p. 45. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 167 

of subjection to an imperative impulse or idea. 
Hysteria is a chaotic disorder of " segmented " 
will. Lesser degrees of the tendencies which cul- 
minate in these acute disorders are common to all 
men. In virtue of native temperament most lit- 
tle children are prone either toward subjection 
to a master impulse or toward that ^^ fickleness 
of conduct " that '' irrational change of plan 
which can itself become a hopelessly fixed habit 
in a given brain." ^ One great duty of education 
is to assist them so to integrate themselves that 
they may escape the danger to which these defects 
expose them, and the best method yet devised for 
the accomplishment of this aim is the creation of 
a healthy selective interest through the doing of 
typical deeds. Professor Royce tells us that 
" We must get children to do before they can con- 
sciously will this or that particular form of do- 
ing." ^^ Involuntary conduct," he writes, " must 
precede the voluntary, but the right sort of invol- 
untary conduct you can only establish through 
appeals to the feelings and through presenting the 
fitting objects of knowledge to the intellect." ^ 
The method of the Froebelian kindergarten which 
incites typical deeds through appeal to imag- 
ination, and which, by means of typical deeds, 



1 Outlines of Psychology, Josiah Royce, p. 69. 
" Ihid., p. 374. See Chapter II of this book. 



168 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

creates a rational selective interest, is a practical 
effort to realize this primary demand of true edu- 
cation. The method of the free play kindergar- 
ten, which tightens upon the child of strong na- 
tive bias the chains of heredity and environment, 
and increases the tendency of capricious wills to 
hesitant and vacillating choices, is a parody on 
all education. Persistent surrender to any master 
impulse augments the danger of becoming en- 
slaved by others, and fickle deeds must beget fickle 
and irresolute characters. 

The self-refuting dialectic of the free-play 
ideal should now be apparent to the careful 
reader. That ideal has a bifurcated root. One 
fork of this root is the gratuitous assumption 
that the kindergarten should be given over to 
perfectly free play, the other is that exag- 
gerated emphasis upon hereditary impulse and 
environment which denies all freedom, and cul- 
minates in the conception of play as a fated 
activity. 

The collapse of free play into reflex or semi- 
reflex activities is more completely illustrated in 
a chapter of the Kindergarten Problem which re- 
lates to plays of physical action. ^' The essence of 
play," we are told, is that it " should be directed 
by the hereditary and instinctive impulses from 
within. And the aesthetic or morally instinctive 
games of the kindergarten are to be ranked with 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 169 

a diet of beefsteak for suckling infants." ^ In- 
herited impulses must be called into activity by 
external stimulus, hence the kindergarten should 
provide '' clean sand to roll, build, and model in. 
mounds to jump from, poles to climb, balustrades 
to slide from, paths to run in, bushes to hide in, 
balls to throw, hammers with which to pound," ^ 
and a goodly number of other incentives, such as 
swings, jumping-ropes, and seesaws. These in- 
centives quicken hereditary impulses, and call into 
exercise our larger muscles. "It is a noticeable 
fact," says our monograph, " that in running, 
kicking, jumping, throwing, climbing, wrestling, 
turning somersaults, etc., only fundamental move- 
ments are brought into play. Our tree-dwelling 
ancestors might have performed, and did perform 
any and all of these movements, so that they are 
handed down to the child's nervous system with 
such a long and reputable list of references that 
he is fain to make good use of them before ever 
he is ready to attempt the newer-fangled accessory 
movements of finger, hand, and eye, which have 
been added to the curriculum of life by his nearer 
ancestor, man." ^ 

The dogma that " the larger and fundamental 
muscles which move the greater joints precede in 
their development the smaller, finer, or accessory 

1 The Kindergarten Problem, p. 34. 
^ Ibid., p. 33. ^Ibid.,p.U. 



170 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

muscles which move fingers, throat, lips, and 
make all the more delicate adjustments," ^ is re- 
sponsible not only for much of the arresting prac- 
tice of the Santa Barbara experimenters, but for 
widespread neglect of the finger games of the 
Mother Play, and widespread attack upon many 
activities through which the traditional kinder- 
garten developed manual skill. It has called 
forth the demand that nearly all kindergarten ma- 
terial shall be increased in size, and finally, it has 
been one of the conspiring causes of recent efforts 
to introduce into the kindergarten such household 
industries as sweeping, dusting, and laundry 
work.- The following statement made by the 
greatest American exponent of genetic psychology 

1 Adolescence, Dr. G. Stanley Hall, vol. i, p. 88. 

2 The elimination of finger plays seems to me an unmixed 
evil. The question of household industries in the kinder- 
garten will be discussed in a later chapter. The enlargement 
of kindergarten material involves in some cases questions 
which psychologists admit to be still unsettled. For example, 
the increased size of folding paper brings up the unsettled 
question of the maximum limit of unstrained vision. In other 
cases the enlargement of material obviously interferes with 
educational results, e. g., when children are encouraged to 
make very large pictures it becomes impossible for them to 
overlook the picture as a whole, and therefore each object in 
the picture has to have its place indicated by the kinder- 
gartner. Finally, there are cases in which any decision 
involves balancing many different problems. Thus the en- 
largement of the blocks brings up the questions of increased 
expense, diminished space for children to build in or retreat 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 171 

would seem to indicate that revolutionary activity 
had been somewhat precipitate. 

Somewhere or other the false notion has crept into 
our pedagogy that the child's fine muscles do not de- 
velop until later than the large muscles. How can 
one believe such a false statement when he sees a 
young infant clutching with its little fingers and ex- 
hibiting in this grip one of its strongest movements? 
How can one believe this dogma when he sees the boys 
and girls in the first grade doing all the work that 
they do in writing with the fine finger muscles — liter- 
ally overdoingUhis work in a very noticeable degree? 
The fact is, the fine muscles are in full operation very 
early in life/ 

Surrendering the claim of prior development 
the question emerges whether accent upon the use 
of larger muscles may not be urged upon the 
ground of prior muscular coordination. The suf- 
ficient answer to this question is that the repe- 
tition of already coordinated movements tends to 
produce arrest of development, except in cases 
where these movements are included in new and 
larger coordinations. It is in virtue of the abun- 
dance and variety of their diffuse or unorganized 
movements that children can be led to form new 
habits of action. " In movement, as in every 

from the tables to the floor and loss of that unit of measure 
which makes the Froebelian building gifts such a valuable 
preparation for mathematics. 

* Genetic Psychology for Teachers, p. 222, Charles Hubbard 
Judd, Ph.D., Leipsic. Int. Ed. Series. 



172 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

other sphere," writes Dr. Judd, " nature attacks 
her problems by producing more than she needs, 
and then picking out the best. . . . Nature starts 
out with a diffuse brain, as if she would say 
to the individual, ^ I will not place any restric- 
tions upon you, but will let you have at first 
all the possible movements to select from.' She 
stirs up the brain in all directions and the diffuse 
movements begin to appear in abundance. There 
are movements of the head and arms and feet and 
trunk. Not all are necessary to the final form of 
action, and most will drop away as development 
goes on. But in the whole mass of movements the 
right ones must be there, and development means 
the selection of the right movements out of the 
total mass of diffuse movements. Only one lim- 
itation appears in all this provision of many 
movements. This is the limitation we have al- 
ready noted. ^ No mechanism could be devised 
which would not in the general stimulation of the 
muscles affect the small muscles more than the 
large ones." 

1 The limitation noted is explained at length in the fol- 
lowing sentences: "They (the fine muscles) are the muscles 
which in diffuse movements are most apt to be called into 
action. It requires a less powerful excitation from the 
nervous centers to set the fine muscles into action. They 
contract at the slightest stimulation. ... In short, diffusion 
always exaggerates first of all the movements of the fine 
muscles." 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 173 

Two facts would seem to be established. The 
fine muscles are in full operation very early in 
life. There is therefore no valid reason derived 
from the condition of the child's nervous system 
why fingers and eyes should not be duly exercised 
as well as trunks, legs, and arms. Development 
takes place through the coordination of diffuse 
movements. To put the almost exclusive emphasis 
of the kindergarten upon already coordinated 
movements is, therefore, so far as we are able, to 
arrest development.-^ 

No one can study FroebeFs chapter on move- 
ment plays without assurance of the fact that he 
provides amply for the needed exercise of the 
larger muscles. Were his suggestions with regard 
to garden work carried out, the fundamental mus- 
cles would be still further called into use. The 
question at issue is not whether fundamental mus- 
cles shall be duly exercised, but whether there 
shall be such an elimination of the activities which 
exercise the fine muscles as to destroy one chief 
merit of the kindergarten as a factor in education. 

" It is evident," writes Dr. Harris, " that if 
the school is to prepare for the arts and trades, 
it is the kindergarten which is to accomplish the 
object, for the training of the muscles, if it is to 

1 Pages 169-174 of this chapter have been submitted to Dr. 
Judd, and I have his permission to state that I have repre- 
sented his point of view correctly. 



174 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

be a training for special skill in manipulation, 
must be begun in early youth. As age advances 
it becomes more difficult to acquire new phases of 
manual dexterity. 

'^ Two weeks' practice of holding objects in his 
right hand will make the infant in his first year 
right-handed for life. The muscles yet in pulpy 
consistency are very easily set in any fixed direc- 
tion. The child trained for one year in Froebel's 
gifts and occupations will acquire a skillful use 
of his hands and a habit of accurate measurement 
of the eye which will be his possession for life." ^ 

The suggestions made by the authors of the 
Kindergarten Problem with regard to representa- 
tive plays are no less revolutionary than those re- 
lating to games of physical culture. We are told 
that there are three groups of representative plays 
based respectively on the imitative, the construc- 
tive, and the dramatic instincts. Omitting the 
second group, which relates chiefly to plays about 
which there is little divergence of opinion,^ let us 

» History of the Kindergarten in St. Louis. Annual Report 
of that city. 

2 "A second class of plays requiring more imagination 
includes those which are based on the constructive instinct. 
Here the sand pile is the arena supreme. . . .The children 
build fences, reservoirs, gardens; they pile up mountains; 
they dig wells, tunnels, and trenches; they erect flag poles; 
they concoct pies, cakes, tomales." — The Kindergarten 
Problem, pp. 46 and 47. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 175 

give our careful consideration to groups one and 
three. These groups are described as follows: 



GROUP I 

Being an animal. — Based on the imitative in- 
stinct: horse, fishes, bear, frogs, cow, wild turkey, fox, 
rattlesnake. In a sequent paragraph we learn that 
" as a horse the child runs and prances about ; as a 
fish, he swims in the sand; as a bear, he runs and 
growls; as a wild turkey, he flaps his arms; as a fox, 
he hides in his hole; as a rattlesnake, he writhes his 
body." ' 



GROUP III 

Representation of adult occupations. — Based on the 
dramatic instinct : blacksmith, train - band, horse- 
show, merry-go-round, farmer, Santa Glaus, baker 
shop, bakery wagon, dairyman, planting garden, or- 
chard, mother, sisters, doll with variations (holding, 
rocking, dressing, kissing, talking to, taking to ride, 
taking for a walk, putting to bed, dosing with medi- 
cine, feeding with grass or lunch), washing dishes, 
washing clothes, ironing, sweeping, party with dishes, 
burial, kindergarten, school, Christmas tree, loading 
wagons, hauling and dumping, driving horse, lasso- 
ing horses, peddler, pantry with sand for food, hunt- 
ing wild game, punishment, tomale man, bus, rain- 
storm with sand for rain.* 

1 The Kindergarten Problem, p. 46. ^ /^^(/^ 



176 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

The disheartening facts forced upon us as we 
read the list of games in both these groups are the 
fatal blindness of the experimenting kindergart- 
ners to the meaning of imitation and their cease- 
less surrender to the momentary caprices of little 
children. 

What a child imitates he tends to become. What 
he imitates he will notice. What he imitates he 
begins to understand. Blind to the fact that 
" nothing less than the child's personality is at 
stake in the method and matter of his imita- 
tions," the free play revolutionizers of Froebelian 
games are perfectly willing to have children trans- 
form themselves into sneaking foxes and writhing 
rattlesnakes. Ignoring the reaction of imitation 
upon selective interest they eye with equal favor 
the representation of garden-planting, or human 
burial. Aware of the fragmentariness of child- 
ish thought they reject Froebel's wise and gentle 
plan for overcoming it, and arrest development 
by really encouraging " the distorted prominence 
of isolated factors of experience." In short, 
through a specific application of the fatal heresy 
which underlies the whole free-play programme, 
they shift upon children the entire responsibility 
of selecting what they will represent and how they 
will represent it. By this act of abdication they 
reduce the kindergarten games to a hotchpotch 
not only devoid of educational value, but abso- 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 177 

lutelj perverting in its reaction upon intellect, 
emotion, and will. 

The attentive reader will doubtless have ob- 
served that in the representative plays described 
each child acted as an isolated individual, and 
will therefore not be surprised to learn that our 
Santa Barbara experimenters intentionally dis- 
card circle games. The reason given for this radi- 
cal change is that the individual child is prior 
to the social child, and that traditional games 
which emphasize the group as opposed to the in- 
dividual belong to the period between seven and 
twelve years of age. " The sacred circle of kin- 
dergarten paraphernalia, we are told, does not 
seem to be based on any natural penchant of chil- 
dren of kindergarten age for the traditional circle 
games.'' ^ The argument advanced is valid only if 
it be granted that education should never lead chil- 
dren to do anything which in their given stage of 
development they might not and would not have 
done of themselves. This assumption underlies 
the whole free-play programme. Its clear state- 
ment is its self-refutation. It has been shown 
that both in biologic and social recapitulation 
there are ^' short cuts " from lower to higher 
planes of development. Why, therefore, should 
education be reproached for consciously seeking 
short cuts, when one of her avowed aims is to help 

> The Kindergarten Problem, p. 50. 
13 



178 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the individual to recapitulate within the span of 
a single life the achievement of ages? 

The kindergarten games mediate between the 
traditional games of the nursery and the tradi- 
tional games of the playground. Their content 
is borrowed for the most part from plays anal- 
ogous to Pat-a-Cake and Shoe the Horse, which 
are played by mothers and little children the 
world over. Their form is borrowed from the 
traditional ring games of older children. They 
are, therefore, transitional in type, and may, per- 
haps, be best described as a repetition by many 
children standing on a circle and following a 
leader of the simple movements of nursery plays. ^ 

The effort of the Froebelian kindergarten is to 
reenforce in fair proportion generic or ideal modes 
of self-expression. Froebel recognized in many 
traditional games the deposit of unconscious rea- 
son, preserved what was good in this deposit, and 
omitted its objectionable features; supplied miss- 
ing links, and presented a series of games wherein 
each is related to all the others, and which, by 
means of dramatic and graphic representation, 
poetry and music win for the ideals they embody 
a controlling power over the imagination. In 

* In some instances, e. g., the farmer, both content and form 
are borrowed from some simpler traditional ring game. I 
agree with the authors of the Kindergarten Problem that it is a 
mistake to introduce complex relationships into our circle 
games. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 179 

like manner, from among traditional toys, he 
picked out those which possessed most educative 
value, ordered them into related series, and sug- 
gested a method by which they might be con- 
sciously used to enrich, interpret, and organize the 
child's experience, develop his creative power, and 
awaken in him a selective interest which would 
begin the process of his deliverance from the coer- 
cion of heredity and environment.* If these se- 
lected and organized games and gifts have no 
value, then the traditional kindergarten has no 
raison d'etre. But if Froebel has translated the 
hieroglyphic of native play and found means 
which, Avithout detriment to spontaneity, influence 
the growth of character and the trend of thought, 
then the substitution of free play for the media- 
torial activity of the kindergarten with its prac- 
tical consequences in the elimination of many 
Froebelian instrumentalities and the addition of 
many educationally valueless toys, is not educa- 
tional progress but educational atavism. 

The gist of the contention between the free-play 
reformers and the traditional kindergarten is, 
whether the immediate interests of little children 
are a sufficient index of what is contributory to 
their development. With the clear statement of 
the point at issue hesitation betw^een the opposing 
views seems impossible. Who does not know, as 

» See Chapter II of this book. 



180 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

a fact of familiar experience, that many things 
children delight in doing it is bad for them to 
do; that many sense-incentives to which they ea- 
gerly respond corrupt their taste, and that, since 
many instinctive forms of play are survivals of 
an out-grown stage of human progress, undue ac- 
cent upon them tends to arrest development at 
its point of departure. I hope I shall not seem 
to be trifling with a serious subject if I frankly 
confess that my own reaction against the hue and 
cry for recapitulation of feral and animal ac- 
tivities is best expressed in the words of Oliver 
Herford's nursery rhyme: 

Children, behold the chimpanzee; 
He sits on the ancestral tree 
From which we sprang in ages gone; — 
I^m glad we sprang — had we held on 
We might, for all that I can say, 
Be horrid chimpanzees to-day. 

In their attempts to revolutionize the kinder- 
garten games, gifts, and occupations, the Santa 
Barbara kindergartners acted under the spell of 
false conceptions of the kindergarten, of the 
child, and of the nature of play. Their experi- 
ments in story-telling seem to have been conducted 
under the spell of psychologists who insisted that 
the chief end of literature was to create sense-im- 
ages and call forth motor responses thereto. The 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 181 

methods inspired by this psychologic fallacy are 
described as follows: 

In taking" up the story work in our kindergarten 
this year, we decided to try with the entering class 
of children from four to five years old, the favorite 
rhymes of Mother Goose. We took up at first the 
briefest ones, such as: 



Or; 



"Rub-a-dub, dub, 
Three men in a tub." 

" Jack, be nimble ; 
Jack, be quick; 
Jack, jump over the candlestick." 

Oftentimes we acted them out before asking the 
children to illustrate. For instance, the morning I 
told them the rhyme of " Jack, be nimble," I had a 
candlestick and candle, which we put on the floor; 
then we suited the action to the words, each child who 
wished going through the jumping. " Seesaw, Mar- 
gery Daw," was given the first time with little suc- 
cess for lack of illustration, but again I tried it, erect- 
ing a miniature seesaw in the sand-box, with small 
dolls on either end, and, when given the charcoal and 
paper, the results were astonishing; each child had 
now a visual picture to draw from. The first verse 
of " Jack and Jill " was successfully illustrated in the 
sand-box, with a hill of sand, dolls, little tin bucket, 
a well at the top of the hill, with well-frame of sticks 
and string to pull up the bucket. 

" Ding-dong bell. 
Pussy's in the well," 



182 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

was enjoyed with the above well, and a picture cat to 
let down and pull out/ 



This report needs no comment. The theory 
that the one end and aim of story-telling is to 
create visual images will always call forth meth- 
ods which chain the mind to sense-perception. 
Of all the hobbies that have perverted the prac- 
tice of the kindergarten, the hobby of the visual 
image has had perhaps the. most baleful influence. 
Its results have been both comic and tragic. One 
kindergartner poured a bucket of water along 
the floor of her kindergarten, because she wished 
her children to visualize a stream. Numbers of 
kindergartners have described fairy palaces of 
marvelous beauty and then asked children to 
build them with the eight cubes of the third gift. 
Nor is this sin against imagination confined to 
the kindergarten. In the grammar school the 
myth of Persephone has been shorn of its beauty 
and its appeal to imagination by using paper dolls 
to give children visual images of Ceres, Perseph- 
one, and Pluto, and by intertwining yards of 
black paper and tinsel to represent the realm of 
Hades. In the Sunday school flaming red liquids 
made colorless by chemicals have been supposed 
to recommend to innocent childhood such curi- 
ously inappropriate texts as " Though your sins 

» The Kindergarten Problem, pp. 59, 60. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 183 

be as scarlet they shall be white as snow ; " jointed 
dolls, pierced with arrows, laid upon mimic fires, 
and crucified upside down have effectually dis- 
tracted attention from all that is most valuable in 
the history of the great apostles of the church, and 
china lambs of many sizes, but of common stiff- 
ness and imbecility have stifled the tender and 
touching appeal of Christ as the lamb of God. Is 
it not time to call a halt to the experiments of 
teachers so in bondage to the prosaic understand- 
ing, and to point out clearly the errors of those 
psychologists who value literature chiefly as an 
instrument for creating mental images, and one of 
whom hesitates not to ascribe Shakespeare's su- 
premacy to the facts that he had magnificent sen- 
sory training, made the proper motor responses 
thereto, and was blessed with parents who could 
neither read nor write ? 

Having revolutionized the kindergarten games, 
gifts, and occupations, and destroyed story-telling 
as a simple art, the Santa Barbara experimenters 
devote their final attention to kindergarten draw- 
ing, which they insist should take exclusively the 
form of picture-writing, should be preceded by 
dramatic representation, and should begin with 
blackboard exercises which demand large, free-arm 
movements. " Education,'' we are told, " has been 
and is burdened by a hapless confusion between 
drawing as an art and drawing in a more primi- 



184 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

five stage of its evolution, found alike in the 
child and in primitive man — drawing merely as 
a way of telling something." ^ 

It should be frankly admitted that by its neg- 
lect of picture-writing, and its exaggerated em- 
phasis upon type forms and conventional design, 
the traditional kindergarten laid itself open to 
the criticism of the child-study reformers.^ But 
when the reformers fell into the error of entirely 
repudiating design, they overlooked a tendency 
abundantly illustrated in the products of primi- 
tive peoples and repeated in the love of all little 
children for arrangement games. Had this act 
of repudiation been confined to drawing, its re- 
sults, though regrettable, would not have been so 
disastrous as they have actually proved themselves 
to be. It is because it was extended so as to at- 
tack forms of beauty with blocks, tablets, sticks, 
rings, and lentils, to make all gift exercises illus- 
trative, and to eliminate design from the kinder- 
garten occupations that its influence has been so 

1 The Kindergarten Problem, p. 57. 

2 In the Mother Play, The Education of Man, and The 
Pedagogics of the Kindergarten, Froebel makes many sug- 
gestions with regard to ways and means of developing the 
power of graphic representation of concrete objects. These 
suggestions were too much neglected by his followers. See 
in The Mother Play the Commentary on the Little Artist. 
See also The Education of Man, pp. 75-79; and Education by 
Development, pp. 62-68. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 185 

subversive, and that it has called forth such an 
active protest from Froebelian kindergartners.^ 

In the earlier part of this chapter I called at- 
tention to the two great fallacies which created 
the free-play movement. I have tried to suggest 
the results of these fallacies through consideration 

* The exhibit of children's work made in New York during 
the fourteenth annual convention of the International Kinder- 
garten Union (April 22 to May 3, 1907), proved beyond dis- 
pute, that through the craze for illustration combined with 
the idea that immediate environment should determine the 
subjects illustrated, too many kindergartens had become 
instruments for arresting the intellect and brutalizing the 
taste of little children. What influence except for evil can 
it have upon a child to make a cardboard model of the ugly 
tenement house in which he lives, and to make his copy, if 
possible, uglier than the original? Wherein lies the educa- 
tional value of paper articles of clothing badly cut and strung 
from roof to roof in copy of the laundry methods of the 
slums? What Hberating influence is exercised upon im- 
agination by a faulty reproduction of the garbage man and 
his cart? In short, why do ugly work in order to rivet atten- 
tion upon deplorable surroundings? 

A second fact proved by the exhibit, was that the mania for 
illustration had caused many kindergartners to discard 
traditional materials in favor of tissue paper, clothes pins, 
strings, cracker boxes, and paper men and animals badly 
drawn and colored. The leaves and flowers made of tissue 
paper and used for stringing were an offense to nature and 
an insult to taste. It is no argument to say that we must 
meet children on their own plane. Upon every plane of 
development something may be done to increase efficiency 
and refine sensibility. To help children to make uglier things 
than they could possibly have done without adult misguid- 
ance is a caricature of education. 



186 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

of the general programme; the new methods pro- 
posed for gift and occupation exercises, the em- 
phasis upon mere movement games, the additions 
suggested to the instrumentalities of Froebel, and 
the devices thought necessary in order that the 
simplest rhymes might penetrate the dense minds 
of little children. My aim has been to prove that 
whereas the free-play programme claims to be 
the only rational solution to Froebel's plea for 
^^ self-activity," it is the one programme which 
most effectually discourages self-activity. By its 
preference for the fundamental movements of 
hypothetical tree-dwelling ancestors, it prevents 
that development of hand and fingers which made 
the Froebelian kindergarten a transition toward 
the manual training school ; by its insistence upon 
the visual image, its neglect of symbolism, its dis- 
traction of attention through a mixed multiplicity 
of toys, and its refusal to advance from isolated 
facts through serial connection to causal agency, 
it arrests intelligence upon the lowest plane of 
sense-perception. Worst of all, by its ceaseless 
surrender to the whim of the moment, it kills the 
will which is struggling to be born out of feeling 
and desire. Its methods, one and all, are a refut- 
ing commentary, which he who runs may read, 
upon its major proposition, that " the kindergarten 
is a substitute for childish play in its totality," ^ 
» Dr. Harris. 



I 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 187 

and its minor proposition that play itself can 
be adequately defined as ancestral impulses 
called into activity by the solicitations of en- 
vironment. 

It will doubtless be objected to my discussion 
of the free-play programme that the type of kin- 
dergarten described has no actual existence, and 
that there is not a single kindergartner in Amer- 
ica who unequivocally accepts the ideal of free 
play as a criterion by which to determine her 
practice. The objection is at once valid and mis- 
leading. Doubtless the dialectic of experience has 
already practically refuted the wholesale fallacy 
of free play, and the Santa Barbara experiment 
will never be repeated. On the other hand, many 
practices which sprang into being during the brief 
authority of the child-study movement persist in 
detached kindergartens, and few kindergartners 
have so consciously interpreted the argument from 
experience as to be wholly free from danger of 
perversion. The necessity of the hour is that is- 
sues should be sharply defined, frankly stated, and 
fairly met. Granting therefore that no single 
kindergarten is exclusively dominated by the fal- 
lacy of free play, I maintain that the influence of 
this conception is still traceable in a tendency to 
increase unduly the number of running, skipping, 
hopping, catching, throwing, and climbing games ; 
in an unwise attempt to concentrate interest upon 



188 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

animals; in sporadic efforts to introduce into 
the kindergarten toys devoid of educational value ; 
in reversions to street games; in the tendency to 
discard or minimize all the traditional material 
of the kindergarten, except blocks, sand, clay, 
scissors, pencils, paper, brushes, and paint; in the 
elimination of exercises relating to the organization 
as opposed to the unselective reproduction of ex- 
perience ; in methods of story-telling which enslave 
the mind to the mental image; in the repudiation 
of symbolism as the characteristic form of mental 
activity between the ages of three and six years, 
and in a seeming total blindness to the fact that 
while art is allied to play through its freedom and 
spontaneity, it develops from the beginning under 
the influence of that principle of order whose ini- 
tial manifestations are rhythm, measure, and pro- 
portion. ^ 

The merit of the kindergarten, as that institu- 
tion was conceived by its founder, is that, recog- 
nizing the values of life as approximate defini- 
tions of the structure of mind, it is able both 
to root education in spontaneous activities, and 
to guide it toward rational issues. The defects 
of the concentric programme arise from the fact 
that while recognizing the values of life it imposes 
them from without instead of developing them 
from within the child. The irony of the free-play 
J See Chapter II, pp. 49-52. 



THE FREE-PLAY PROGRAMME 189 

programme is that by ignoring the values of life 
and tacitly denying to mind any true self -activity, 
it presents the anomaly of an educational method 
which lacks both a subject matter of education 
and a person to be educated. 



CHAPTEE VII 

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 

The self-refuting practice of free-play kinder- 
gartens cannot be fnlly appreciated until it is set 
in the context of that general demand for a new 
return to nature, of which it is one of the minor 
expressions. The most ardent champion of this 
contemporary Eousseauism is Dr. G. Stanley Hall^ 
and a lucid statement of its main tenets is con- 
tained in the following passage of his book on 
Adolescence : 

Rousseau would leave pre-pubescent years to na- 
ture and to the primal hereditary impulsions, and 
allow the fundamental traits of savagery their fling 
until twelve. Biological psychology finds many and 
cogent reasons to confirm this view if only a proper 
environment could be provided. The child revels in 
savagery, and if its tribal, predatory, hunting, fishing, 
fighting, roving, idle, playing proclivities could be in- 
dulged in the country and under conditions that now, 
alas! seem hopelessly ideal, they could conceivably be 
so organized and directed as to be far more truly hu- 
manistic and liberal than all that the best modern 
school can provide. Rudimentary organs of the soul 
190 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 191 

now suppressed, perverted, or delayed, to crop out later 
in menacing forms, would be developed in their sea- 
son so that we should be immune to them in maturer 
years, on the principle of the Aristotelian catharsis 
for which I have tried to suggest a broader applica- 
tion than the Stagirite could see in his day.' 

The demand for a new return to nature presup- 
poses a strict parallel between the development of 
the individual and that of the race, and puts an 
arresting emphasis upon the rehearsal of savage 
and pre-human activities.^ Biologists and com- 
parative psychologists insist that the individual 
human organism and the individual human mind 
go through stages which recapitulate the history 
of the animal world in its ascent toward man. 
Anthropologists claim that in the development 
of each human individual the great culture epochs 
of history must be repeated. The tendency of any 
mind to dwell too fondly upon biologic recapitu- 
lation obscures its vision of historic recapitula- 

» Adolescence, G. Stanley Hall, preface to vol. i, pp. x-xi. 
Has not Dr. Hall perverted the Aristotelian catharsis rather 
than given it broader application? Aristotle uses the term to 
explain the influence of the tragic drama and suggests that it 
purifies the soul through a vicarious experience of the out- 
come of evil passions. It would seem that his idea is pre- 
cisely to save the individual from that free fling of impulse 
which Dr. Hall thinks indispensable to the growth of moral 
character. 

2 E. g., the activities of man's hypothetical tree-dwelling 
ancestors. 



192 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

tion, and creates theories which, when applied in 
education yield fatal results. To this class of 
theories belongs that conception of play, as " the 
motor habits of the past persisting in the present," 
which explains the practical paradox that in free- 
play kindergartens there is no freedom. To the 
same class belongs the theory that the fundamen- 
tal traits of savagery should have free fling until 
the age of twelve years. A being who must re- 
hearse in the short span of an individual life the 
culture stages of history may not give so much 
time to the recapitulation of feral and brute ac- 
tivities. 

Disciples of the new return to nature have 
failed to adjust the rival claims of biologic and 
historic recapitulation. They have also given 
scant attention to many questions involved in the 
general conception of a parallel between the de- 
velopment of the individual and that of the race. 
Is it true that each stage of the process of de- 
velopment is a direct outcome of its next inferior, 
and a necessary transition toward its next supe- 
rior? Must the individual live through experi- 
ences which the race has outlived ? Were all these 
outlived experiences necessary phases of phylo- 
genetic development, or may it be that in some 
of them, at least, humanity strayed from the path 
of progress? Has mankind achieved such good- 
ness and wisdom as it possesses by following na- 



i 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 193 

ture or bj warring against nature? If it made 
war against nature where did it get the ideal 
which incited the war ? 

The answers to these several questions may be 
most easily approached by considering the method 
of moral education defended by advocates of the 
new return to nature. This method has been 
boldly formulated by Dr. Hall, who insists " that 
a boy of twelve years of age should have been 
through most forms of what parents and teachers 
commonly call badness. . . . He should have 
fought, w^hipped and been whipped, used language 
offensive to the prude and the prim precisian; 
been in some scrapes; had something to do with 
bad, if more with good associates, and been ex- 
posed to and already recovering from as many 
forms of ethical mumps and measles, as by hav- 
ing in mild form now, he can be rendered im- 
mune to later." ^ This statement clearly implies 
that the only way of getting rid of badness is by 
being a little bad. It is a serious proposal to sow 
wild oats, and akin to the idea that it is necessary 
for youth to paint the town red. The conviction 
in which it is grounded would seem to be that 
every native instinct subserves some good pur- 
pose, and has a sphere of legitimate exercise. It 
may be that some instincts have only a transitory 
value, and that in the development of man's moral 

» Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 452. 
14 



194 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

nature their role is analogous to that of the tad- 
pole's tail in the development of the frog's legs. 
They ^' exercise atavistic functions which will 
abort before maturity/' but in and through such 
exercise they stimulate virtues which otherwise 
would never arise. Hence, " Give nature her 
fling," and by letting children act as they are, 
insure that they shall become what they ought 
to be. 

I look over the lists of our native instincts and 
emotions given in contemporary psychologies, and 
find among them deceitfulness, jealousy, terror, 
rage and cruelty. Has deceitfulness a root of 
blessing? Has jealousy "a soul of goodness" 
would we observingly distill it out ? Are we to 
conquer courage by surrender to blind terror, win 
sweet serenity by indulging in rage, and achieve 
loving-kindness by giving free fling to our native 
cruelty? And if in these cases, at least, virtue 
is attained not by self-indulgence but by self-con- 
quest, may it not be well to consider whether the 
only way that man can make himself what he 
ought to be is by unmaking himself as he is ? ^ 
Any considerate survey of our " feeling in- 
stincts " will at least convince us that while nature 

> The reader must distinguish between rage and anger, 
terror and fear. There is a wise fear and possibly a righteous 
anger. There can never be a wise terror or a righteous rage. 
See the chart of man's native emotions prefixed to Mental 
Evolution in Man, by George John Romanes. 



i 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 195 

supplies many of the materials out of which 
we build our house of life, she has also left in 
us some rubbish heaps — debris of her own past 
building, which the human builder must throw 
away. 

Turning from this cursory glance at our native 
instincts to the process of moral education as car- 
ried out in history, we become aware that men 
have not grown better by permitting themselves 
to be a little bad, but that always and everywhere 
virtue has been achieved by the exercise of self- 
restraint. It is interesting in this connection to 
recall the statement of Lecky, that '^ the first form 
of human virtue is the courageous endurance of 
suffering, this being the one conspicuous instance 
in early savage life of a course of conduct op- 
posed to natural impulses, and pursued through a 
belief that it is higher and nobler than its oppo- 
site." ^ The first books of ethics were written by 
slaves, and Hegel explains their authorship by 
the fact that being forced to do what masters 
commanded slaves were subjected to a discipline 
which lifted them out of servitude to their own 
appetites and passions. Prohibitory laws pre- 
cede mandatory laws. Confucius teaches the 
golden rule in a negative form. The aim of all 
the ceremonies of Zoroastrianism is to expel 

' Cited in Love and Law in Child Training, Emilie Poulsson, 
p. 143. 



196 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

evil. The cardinal virtues of paganism — justice, 
prudence, temperance, fortitude — are virtues of 
self-restraint. Most of the Ten Commandments 
declare what man must not do. It would seem, 
therefore, that the doctrine of historic recapitu- 
lation calls rather for the inhibition than the 
indulgence of idle, predatory, and fighting 
proclivities, and discourages the idea that char- 
acter is formed by giving free fling to natural 
impulse. 

The method of laissez-aller, characteristic alike 
of original and contemporary Kousseauism not 
only arrests the parallel between the development 
of the individual and that of the race, at its his- 
toric point of departure, but also directly antago- 
nizes the doctrine of psychology, with regard to 
the function of inhibition. In a striking passage 
of his Larger Psychology, Professor James de- 
clares that " we should all be cataleptics and never 
stop a muscular contraction once begun were it not 
that other processes simultaneously going on in- 
hibit the contraction." ^ In his very illuminating 
discussion of deliberate suggestion, Professor 
Baldwin describes that form of inhibition in which 
" coordinate sense-stimuli meet, confront, oppose, 
and further one another,'' and shows that this ten- 
sion of opposing incentives is a necessary requi- 

» Larger Psychology, vol. ii, p. 583. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 197 

site to the rise of volition.^ Professor Royce tells 
us that '^ all higher intellectual processes are ac- 
companied by processes in the cortex which appear 
when seen from without enormously inhibitory," 
and insists that " upon the presence of inhibition 
— i. e., of the prevention or overcoming of one 
form of nervous excitement by the very fact of the 
presence of another, the organization of all our 
higher life depends. What, in any situation we 
are restrained from doing, is as important to us 
as what we do." - The least degree of conscious 
introspection will make any adult aware that ten- 
sion is indispensable to his intellectual and moral 
life. Psychology, therefore, reenforces the lesson 
of history, and confirms the insight that " only 
with renunciation can life, properly speaking, be 
said to begin." 

The thoughts I have been suggesting are obvi- 
ous and commonplace. Their very general recog- 
nition almost immediately undermined the influ- 
ence of the Neo-Rousseau gospel. Its golden 
rule, " Give nature her fling," made way for the 
precept, ^^ Substitute acquired for native reac- 
tions," and the emphasis of education was placed 
upon " the organization of habits of conduct and 
tendencies to behavior." ^ In the attempt to form 

1 Mental Development, James Mark Baldwin, pp. 126-30, 
and p. 372. 

2 Outlines of Psychology, Josiah Royce, pp. 71-73. 

3 Talks to Teachers, William James, p. 29. 



198 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

good habits, however, appeal was often made to 
bad motives, and thus a fatal schism was intro- 
duced into the moral life. The ground for this 
divorce between motive and act is suggested in the 
following statement, which I quote from Teachers' 
College Record for November, 1903: 

It is a folly of both the sentimentalist and the 
ultra-rational thinker to insist that children should 
not only think and act rightly, but also from the right 
motives; that to tell the truth to avoid a beating is 
no better than to tell a lie. For a mature, responsible 
person, this may be true, so far as goodness and bad- 
ness mean respectively things worthy of merit and 
things worthy of blame — and so far as telling the 
truth to avoid a beating forms precisely that habit. 
But with most school children, certainly with kin- 
dergarten children, telling the truth to avoid a beat- 
ing will form the habit of telling the truth in general, 
the memory of the original motive fading away, into 
obscurity, while the actual habit of performance re- 
mains. For a college student to study to win a large 
salary is perhaps no better than idleness; for a gen- 
tleman to be honest because honesty is the best pol- 
icy is perhaps no better than to be dishonest. But 
for the kindergarten child the important thing is that 
it should be obedient, generous, cheerful, courageous, 
and kind, the reason why being a matter that will, 
with proper treatment, die out from the habit and 
leave it as a general tendency. We all have to begin 
with the so-called lower motives, and can hardly be 
expected to have sloughed them off by the fourth year 
of life. It is the good fortune of moral training that 
the lapse of time so often preserves a good habit. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 199 

while allowing the feeling of its source to die out from 
consciousness/ 

The point of this statement is that right action 
may be divorced from right motive, and this is 
a denial of the truth that the motive which in- 
spires an act gives its quality to the act itself. 
It is explicitly affirmed that " we all have to 
begin with the so-called lower motives." The rea- 
son given by contemporary child-students for this 
assumed necessity of acting from lower motives is 
the dominance in childhood of ^' the individual- 
istic instinct.'' In his Fundamentals of Child 
Study," for example, Mr. Kirkpatrick makes the 
following statements: 

The instinct of self-preservation is not only the 
oldest instinct, but one that has been most uniformly- 
useful to all species from the earliest beginnings of 
animal life, hence we should expect it to be strong in 
the young child. There is, however, a still more im- 
portant reason for expecting it to be strong in the 
young of all animals including man, viz., because it 
is the only instinct that can be of any use in this 
stage of early helplessness. Any tendency on the part 
of a young animal or child to act for the good of any 
other being than itself, would be futile and in many 
cases injurious to itself and indirectly to its species; 

» The Philosophy and Psychology of the Kindergarten, 
Teachers' College Record, November, 1903, pp. 59, 60, 
(Italics mine.) 



200 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

hence the individualistic instinct must be dominant 
in the young of all species that survive/ 

This passage assures us that as a result of the 
total process of evolution the individualistic in- 
stinct is exclusively dominant in childhood. In 
the following statements we are apprised how it 
functions in the child of kindergarten age: 

The chief motive of life is to get everything pos- 
sible for himself, objects, sensations, knowledge, privi- 
leges, and honors. ... To be thoughtful of the in- 
terests of others, or to be interested in anything not 
concerned with the advancement of this kingdom of 
his, would be to be something other than a healthy, 
normal child." 

In general, the question which the child mentally 
asks of every object and every person is : " What are 
they good for ? " meaning by good, " What can I get 
out of them ? " He is the center of the universe, and 
everything and everybody is for his pleasure.' . . . 
Upon this rock of truth must be based any sound 
method of moral education. " Good moral training 
will lead the child to discover that he can get most for 
himself in the long run by being kind to others, be- 
cause of the return favors, rewards, and approbation 
thus gained."* 

The mind is a cautious investor that withdraws its 
capital when it ceases to pay dividends of personal 
satisfaction. All our means and methods must in the 

» Fundamentals of Child Study, pp. 92, 93. 

J Ihid., pp. 95, 96. ' IhU., p. 95. 

* Ibid., p. 98. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 201 

last analysis be arrangements for making the good 
thoughts and acts of profit, and the bad thoughts and 
acts of disadvantage to the personal cravings of those 
educated/ 



Summarizing the statements cited we may say 
that they contain a diagnosis of the child's state 
of mind and a theory of moral education based 
upon this diagnosis. The child is declared to be 
wholly selfish and thinking only of what pays. 
The method of education proposed is to foster 
right action by showing that it pays, and to re- 
strain wrong action by proving that it does not 
pay. It is claimed that notwithstanding the con- 
stant appeal to selfish motives they will disappear 
with age. This, however, is an assertion without 
proof. 

The validity of the method proposed depends 
upon the correctness of the diagnosis. If little 
children are really devoid of altruistic emotion, 
there is nothing to do but to make virtue pay. In 
this case, however, we substitute expediency for 
virtue, and should frankly recognize what we have 
done. " Kant," says Mr. Balfour, " compared the 
moral law to the starry heavens, and found both 
sublime. On the naturalistic hypothesis it would 
be more appropriate to compare it to the protec- 
tive blotches on the beetle's back and find both in- 

' Philosophy and Psychology of the Kindergarten, p. 56. 



202 • EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

genious." We accept adaptive ingenuity in lieu 
of morality when we seek to make children good 
by making goodness profitable. 

Before acquiescing in such a radical substitu- 
tion we should be very sure of the fact that in little 
children love and sympathy are emotions unborn. 
Romanes claims that social feelings stir in babies 
ten weeks old ; that affection appears in babies of 
fourteen weeks, and that sympathy is alive and 
active in the child of five months. Most reputable 
psychologists recognize the presence of organic 
sympathy in very young children. The method 
of making virtue pay rests upon a hypothesis of 
more than doubtful authority.-^ 

Waiving the doubts which arise in our minds as 
we consider the psychologic reasons given for ap- 
peals to expediency, we may cordially admit that 
the effort to form right habits through rewards 
and punishments which provoke the conviction that 
virtue pays, finds many parallels in the course of 
human history. The fear of the Lord has been 
very generally the beginning of wisdom. The 
history of the Hebrew people is a typical one, and 
the Old Testament is one long record of ^' arrange- 
ments for making good acts of profit and bad acts 
of disadvantage to the cravings of the race whose 
education it describes." Over the heads of the 

* See also Professor Baldwin's Social and Ethical Interpreta- 
tions, Chapter VI, "Instincts and Emotions," 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 203 

chosen people hung constantly the dread of burn- 
ings, ague, pestilence, seed sown in vain, wasted 
cities, desolated sanctuaries, and deliverance into 
the hands of national enemies. On the other 
hand, long life, prosperity, and posterity were 
assured to all those who obeyed the divine com- 
mands, and devout Hebrews stayed their hearts 
upon promises of blessing for themselves and their 
descendants. The doctrines of heaven and hell as 
taught in the historic churches of Christendom are 
the climax of an educational effort to inhibit 
wrong action and incite right action by appeal to 
individualistic motives. For the righteous is pre- 
pared a heavenly city, with streets of gold and 
gates of pearl ; for the wicked yawns the pit burn- 
ing with fire and brimstone, where there shall be 
weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

As I ponder the contrasting plans of moral edu- 
cation proposed by the advocates of a new re- 
turn to nature and a new war against nature, 
both and neither seem justified in appealing for 
support of their practice to the history of the race. 
The former may urge with truth that men found 
out what was right only through a long course 
of experiment in wrong; the latter may claim 
without fear of contradiction that not by the broad 
path of self-indulgence but by the straight and 
narrow path of self-restraint, has man climbed to 
such moral eminence as he has thus far attained. 



204 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

The admission of both claims destroys the atithor- 
itj of either. The fact that when, through experi- 
ment, any right course of conduct had been dis- 
covered, it was immediately enforced, shows that 
history can change its method. If it has changed 
once, it may have changed more than once. 
Therefore the next question we must consider is 
whether there has been anywhere a second historic 
revolution in the method of moral education, and 
whether the result of this revolution has been to 
set aside both the precept " Give nature her fling '' 
and the maxim, ^' Make virtue pay." 

Anyone who has critically and devoutly stud- 
ied the Sermon on the Mount must be aware that 
it initiates just such a revolution as I have de- 
scribed. It is confessedly a revolutionary procla- 
mation, and, as Bishop Brooks has pointed out, 
embodies a series of protests against the insuf- 
ficiency of existing laws. " Men say, ^ You shall 
not kill ' ; I say, you shall not hate. Men say, 
^ You shall not commit adultery ' ; I say, you shall 
not lust. Men say, ^ You shall not swear falsely ' ; 
I say, you shall not swear at all. Men say, ^ You 
shall love your friends ' ; I say, you shall love 
everybody." ^ Power to obey these revolutionary 
commands is liberated by a revolutionizing mo- 
tive. Jehovah is not God, and in his stead is a 
loving Father who maketh His sun to shine on the 
' Seeking Life, Phillips Brooks, p. 225. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 205 

evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 
the unjust. All men are sons of the one Father, 
and therefore partakers of His nature. They 
must live worthily of their divine heredity. 
Finally, they are able to appreciate the perfect 
love of God through the germinal love in their 
own hearts. For they, too, are fathers, though 
imperfect ones, and being evil yet know how to 
give good gifts to their children. 

Many persons go through life without disen- 
tangling the relationship between ideals and emo- 
tions. They fail to perceive that, on the one hand, 
all our higher emotions are begotten of ideals, 
while on the other, these ideals themselves merely 
universalize antecedent but partial and limited 
emotions. Had men no love in their hearts they 
could never have conceived the ideal of universal 
love. Had they no native sympathy they would 
never have invented patriotism or philanthropy. 
As involuntary conduct must precede voluntary 
and ^' we can never directly will an act until we 
have before done that act, and so expressed the 
nature of it," so involuntary feelings must pre- 
cede all the moral ideals which define and extend 
them. Hence " our first affections '^ are in very 
deed, " the fountain light of all our day, the mas- 
ter-light of all our seeing. '^ 

The native emotion of parental love dates from 
insects and spiders. The native emotion of sym- 



206 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

pathy dates from the hymenoptera. The moral 
ideals of universal love and sympathetic service 
date from the Sermon on the Mount and outside 
of the Christian world are even to-day non-ex- 
istent. A recent remarkable manifesto entitled, 
" The Last Word of Islam to Europe/' declares 
that for Mussulmans this world contains two 
kinds of human beings, believers and infidels, 
and announces as the highest moral obligation: 
" Love, charity, brotherhood to the believers ; 
contempt, hatred, disgust, and war for the infi- 
dels.'' ^ In his very discriminating analysis of 
the Asiatic mind Mr. Meredith Townsend points 
out that not only does the Asiatic lack power to 
give any general sympathy, but he lacks even the 
idea that such sympathy should be given. He 
adds that " it is, of course, open to anyone to say 
that the grand Christian rule of love is not ob- 
served in Europe either, but that is only an intel- 
lectual quip. The European does care for his 
neighbor to a certain extent, and does to a much 
greater extent think that he ought to care. The 
Asiatic does not. He cares for his family, his 
caste, his class, his clan, and sometimes his pro- 
fession, but of his neighbor he is little more re- 
gardful than one dog is of another. He is not 

^ See note to an article by Dr. Harris entitled Social Culture 
in the Form of Education and Religion, Educational Review, 
January, 1905. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 207 

affected by his misfortunes, and will help to in- 
flict misfortunes on him with a serene callousness, 
which in Europe is for the most part never found. 
The Asiatic who could not endure to be an execu- 
tioner, out of sympathy for the victims, is proba- 
bly non-existent. That want of the power of sym- 
pathy is the root of all evil in him, the ultimate 
cause of all the tyrannies, the massacres, and the 
tortures which from the first have disgraced Asi- 
atic life." 1 

The method of the Sermon on the Mount is 
based upon an intuition of the ^' Expulsive power 
of higher affections." It aims to enlarge the 
range, and increase the strength of love and sym- 
pathy, and thereby to repel wrath, lust, untruth- 
fulness, and niggardliness. This method is in 
accord with the doctrines of ^eo-Rousseauism in 
so far as they assert that moral education must 
work from within outward, and must therefore 
find the point of departure in some native im- 
pulse. It contradicts the later gospel in the fact 
that it discriminates between our native emotions 
and while intensifying the power and enlarging 
the range of some of them, sternly inhibits any 
indulgence in others. In its insistence upon in- 
hibition it is at one with the educators who seek 
to substitute acquired for native reactions. It 
differs from them in directing its prohibitions 
» Asia and Europe, Meredith Townsend, Introduction, p. 15. 



208 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

against evil passions instead of evil acts, and one 
of its most characteristic features is its abhorrence 
of that contradiction between act and motive 
which is fostered by the method of making virtue 

pay. 

As an inheritance from his brute and savage 
ancestry man possesses a stock of native emotions 
among which are rage, resentment, lust, deceitful- 
ness, and vanity. It was a great day in human 
history when the blind victim of these imperative 
impulses awoke to the consciousness that there 
should be any limit set to the actions which they 
provoke. It was another great day when this 
awakened consciousness registered itself in com- 
mandments believed to be divine and compulsory. 
Such commandments, however, had double conse- 
quences. They stirred in noble and sensitive 
minds a prescient feeling of the sinfulness of those 
initial emotions whose terminal acts they forbade. 
They called forth in meaner minds all sorts of 
devices for indulging the passions while seeming 
to keep the laws. Untruthfulness was tolerated 
when truth was not buttressed by an oath; cun- 
ning devices winked at wrath and lust while in- 
sisting upon obedience to the letter of the laws 
against murder and adultery and through the 
subtle connivance of that pettiest of all human 
emotions, the emotion of vanity, acts of devotion 
were prostituted into acts of self-indulgence by 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 209 

praying where men conld see and applaud, and 
sounding trumpets to announce the act of alms- 
giving. There was a complete divorce between 
the outer and the inner life. Men seemed to 
others, and even to themselves, good, when in re- 
ality they were bad, and self-satisfaction steeled 
them against reproach and rendered them im- 
penetrable to the most tender and touching ap- 
peals. 

Aside from the moral catastrophe precipitated 
by inhibiting actions while cherishing their cor- 
respondent emotions, serious dangers lurk in the 
energy of inhibition even when it is directed not 
against evil deeds, but evil passions. To directly 
inhibit wrong feelings involves preoccupation 
with them, and such preoccupation either in- 
creases their sway or creates a pathologic con- 
science. As Professor Royce reminds us, " A 
brain that is devoted to mere inhibition becomes 
in very truth like the brain of a Hindoo ascetic — 
a mere ^ parasite ^ of the organism — feeding, as 
it were, upon all the lower inherited or acquired 
nervous functions of this organism, by devoting 
itself to their hindrance. In persons of morbidly 
conscientious life such inhibitory phenomena may 
easily get an inconvenient and sometimes a dan- 
gerous intensity. The result is then a fearful, 
cowardly, helpless attitude toward life — an atti- 
tude which defeats its own purpose and renders 
15 



210 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the sufferer, not as he intends to be — ^ good/ but 
a positive nuisance.'' ^ 

In the Sermon on the Mount, contradiction be- 
tween the inner and outer life is canceled by 
directing the activity of inhibition not against 
terminal acts but initial emotions. This change 
of direction is its first great revolutionary deed. 
Its second, and even more revolutionary act is to 
produce inhibitory results by self-expressive meth- 
ods. It liberates high energies, and sets them to 
war with base passions. Through these two revo- 
lutions it closes the fatal breach between being 
and appearance, and escapes alike the danger of 
hypocrisy and the danger of cowardice. 

To do good acts from selfish motives is to seem 
one thing and to be another. To be forever hold- 
ing one's self in destroys the power of ever letting 
one's self out. The good life is a positive life. 
The good man gives, serves, loves, and through 
the outrush of generosity, sympathy, and affec- 
tion, sweeps away his own meanness, tyranny, 
and lust. Moreover, by a good will which is anx- 
ious to do more than selfishness can demand, he 
calls forth responsive good will in other men. Re- 
fusing to retaliate ; bestowing on his stern creditor 
a free gift; always eager to give and lend, and 
going gladly two miles with the man who would 
have compelled him to go one, he wakes in other 
» Outlines of Psychology, Josiah Royce, p. 77. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 211 

men ^^ the nobleness which may long sleep but 
which is never dead/' Thus in his own soul and in 
the souls of others he overcomes evil with good, 
and the grand transformation is wrought by sim- 
ply acting toward all men as native affection im- 
pels him to act toward those he loves. The seem- 
ingly impossible commands of the Sermon on the 
Mount are fulfilled every day by mothers who 
yearn over erring children; by fathers eager to 
save their own prodigal sons; by wives whom 
cruelty and infidelity challenge only to purer de- 
votion; by friends prompt to lay down life itself 
for a friend. True love for one is enough to 
teach any man how he ought to feel and act 
toward all. 

The problem of moral education is such a 
serious one that no difficulty should be minimized 
and no question evaded. It is therefore incum- 
bent on us to face the one objection to which the 
method of the Sermon on the Mount seems open. 
To command the universal extension of a limited 
and partial affection is to define an ideal but not 
to bestow power to realize it. Our native human 
affections enable us to understand the law; in 
some of us they are strong enough to make us ap- 
prove the law; in all of us they are too weak to 
compel obedience to the law. 

The motive power required for carrying out the 
precepts of the Sermon on the Mount is furnished 



212 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

to those who believe its teachings by the doctrines 
of God the Father, His providential rule, and the 
infinite value of every human soul. It has been 
well said that ^^ the moral reformation wrought by 
Christianity may be summed up in the statement 
that it raised the feeling of humanity from a 
feeble restraining power to an inspiring passion." 
Christ created what had never existed before, 
^' the enthusiasm for humanity," and He did this 
by investing all men with supernatural value 
through His revelation of each and every man as 
a child of God. ^' The highest significance of 
great men," says Professor Harnack,^ ^' is to have 
progressively enhanced, that is, to have progres- 
sively given effect to human value." The unique 
significance of Christ is to have conferred upon 
all men supernatural value. Through recognition 
of this supernatural value all other standards of 
value are overthrown. The differences between 
men melt away in the light of a great equality, and 
there is born a passion which is " neither love for 
the whole human race, nor love for each indi- 
vidual in it, but a love for. the race or for the ideal 
of man in each individual." And as man is in- 
spired with love for his brethren so he is assured 
of the watchful love of the common Father. The 
God who cares even for the flowers of the field 
and the birds of the air, so loves His own children 
» What is Christianity? Harnack, p. 73. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 213 

that He counts the very hairs of their heads. This 
assurance of loving providence disabuses men of 
the blind terror bred in them by age-long struggle 
with wild beasts and wilder elements, and lib- 
erates that free energy w^hich finds expression in 
hope, joy, and heroic endeavor. " "We look at the 
rise of Christianity,'^ says Mr. Chesterton, ^^ and 
conceive it as a rise of self-abnegation and almost 
of pessimism. It does not occur to us that the 
mere assertion that this raging and confounding 
universe is governed by justice and mercy is a bit 
of staggering optimism fit to set all men caper- 
ing." 1 

In the lists of our native emotions given in 
contemporary psychologies, faith is conspicuous 
by its absence. Yet some degree of mutual trust 
would seem to be involved even in the habits of 
gregarious animals and to lie at the root of any 
form of human society. Like love, faith is both 
a native impulse and a celestial virtue. As na- 
tive impulse it is the response of man to his own 
peculiar lineaments in other men, the recognition 
of an identity between himself and the particular 
persons to Avhom he is bound by the tie of blood 
or the tie of special affinity. As a celestial virtue 
it is the extension of this native impulse from 
the few to all, through recognition by the indi- 
vidual of correspondence between his total self, 
' Varied Types, Mark Chesterton, p. 63. 



214 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the total self of all other human individuals, and 
the primal self whence all selves proceed. The 
naive psychologists who created our Aryan speech, 
had a wonderful intuition of the specific quality 
of faith. ^' They derived both the verb to believe 
and the verb to love " from a word luhh, which 
has retained its original meaning in the San- 
skrit lohha, desire, and the Latin lihidOy violent, 
irresistible desire. The same word was after- 
wards taken to express that irresistible passion 
of the soul which makes man break through the 
evidence of the senses and the laws of reason 
(credo quia ahsurdum) and drives him by a 
power which nothing can control to embrace some 
truth which alone can satisfy the natural cravings 
of his being.'' ^ The whole self seeks the satisfac- 
tion of the whole self. To the object which as- 
sures this satisfaction it responds with an irresist- 
ible outrush of faith and love. 

The objection may be raised that I am claim- 
ing for Christianity an authority it does not pos- 
sess. It is important, therefore, to explain that I 
claim for its psychologic intuition and educa- 
tional method only that right of the species over 
the individual recognized in the doctrine of re- 
capitulation. Advocates of the new return to 
nature urge that since mankind had to make 
moral experiments, every individual must repeat 
» Science of Language, Max Miiller, vol. ii, p. 439 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 215 

them. Preachers of the new crusade against 
nature, insist that when through experiment any 
action w^as proved to have destructive conse- 
quences future experiments were prohibited by 
law, and obedience to law enforced by rewards 
and penalties. Hence respect for the parallel be- 
tween the development of the individual and that 
of the race demands not experiment but inhibi- 
tion. My claim is simply that in history itself 
both these methods were superseded by a new 
method which is a synthesis of their merits and 
an elimination of their defects. If, therefore, we 
are to learn from history what to do, we must ac- 
cept her higher as well as her more elementary 
teachings. 

Christianity is at least a historic experiment. 
It may be that the hope of the world centers in 
making the experiment more honest and more 
radical. The characteristic features of the ex- 
periment are the evolution of compulsory ideals 
from native emotions and the guaranty of both 
native emotion and compulsory ideal by the sanc- 
tion of the universe. The cosmos has a character 
akin to, but transcendent of what we recognize as 
best in ourselves. 

Manifestly any method of moral education pre- 
supposes the truth of its final premise. The final 
premise of the Sermon on the Mount is faith in 
personality as the supreme principle of the uni- 



216 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

verse, and faith in the soul of man as partici- 
pating in this principle. Denial of this faith lies 
at the root of many regressive educational prac- 
tices. Its vindication to reason was the feat of 
that great age of which Froebel is the educational 
exponent. Its rediscovery by a new path of ap- 
proach and its reaffirmation as the final explana- 
tion of physical and mental evolution is the task 
with which intelligence is wrestling to-day. There 
are hopeful signs that the task is in process of 
accomplishment. Discovery of the part played by 
attention in volition has given new and convinc- 
ing reasons for a belief in free will, and shown 
that man is something more than " the psycho- 
physical mechanism into which causal science 
construed him." ^ '^ The demand that psychology 
shall be studied from the point of view of the ex- 
perient " ^ instead of that of the external ob- 
server, is transferring attention from " the flux of 
conscious states and the laws by which it is 
ordered to the unities of mind and the inter- 
ests and aims which express them." ^ The study 
of mind as " a cause in action working out its 
own ends in conformity with its own nature," ^ 
is wakening anew the conviction that " all true 

1 Science and Idealism, Hugo Miinsterberg, p. 27. 

2 Personal Idealism. Philosophical essays by eight mem- 
bers of the University of Oxford. Edited by Henry Sturt, 
p. 170. 

3/6w/., p. 171. *lhid., p. 175. 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 217 

causes are first causes," and a " psychology of 
first causes " is beating a short, though steep, 
path of ascent toward the " philosophy of the 
first cause." ^ From the mount of vision to 
which this path conducts reality is described as 
" neither a single being nor many coordinate and 
independent beings, but a one mind who gives 
rise to many." ^ Thus, the fundamental premise 
of the Sermon on the Mount vindicated by 
rational psychology in the age of Froebel, is now 
in process of reestablishment, through a psychol- 
ogy of immediate concrete experience, conceived 
as the " science of free agency." 

Triply buttressed by history, psychology, and 
philosophy, the method of moral education 
founded upon appeal to and extension of our 
primal affections is impregnable against attack. 
It has always been the method intuitively adopted 
by mothers with a genius for motherhood. Com- 
mon practice, however, vibrates perpetually be- 
tween the extremes of adult coercion and adult 
surrender. Neo-Rousseauism merely formulated 
the theoretic equivalent of widely prevalent meth- 
ods when it announced its golden rule : " Give 
nature her fling." Disciples of the new crusade 
against nature have merely reverted to the time- 
honored methods of the peach switch and the 

' Personal Idealism, p. 192. 2 Ibid., p. 391. 



218 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

slipper, somewhat more judiciously applied and 
justified by theories of brain-cells, nerve fibers, 
and native and acquired reactions. There is no 
progress in this swing of practice between an- 
archy and a paternalism which is always tending 
to relapse into despotism. 

A wise method of moral education should me- 
diate between the practice of those who hand over 
the reins to natural impulse and those who believe 
in driving children by reins held in the hands of 
the educator and pulling hard upon bits of deter- 
rent consequences. If the correspondence between 
act and motive be a cardinal point in the moral 
life, is it not a prime duty of education to nur- 
ture those indigenous emotions out of which the 
virtues grow ? If higher affections can wage 
successful war against lower ones, even after the 
latter have gained force by indulgence, why might 
it not be possible from the beginning of life to in- 
hibit selfishness by augmenting the energy of 
social feeling? Instead of giving one or many 
beatings to break up the habit of lying, might we 
save children from falling into this habit by 
strengthening the ties of faith and love, and di- 
recting the attack of these native affections 
against those emotions of vanity, terror, lust, and 
greed, which are the most frequent provocatives 
of falsehood? In general if bad habits can be 
broken up after they are formed, why might it 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 219 

not be possible to prevent their formation ? These 
are the problems with which, as it seems to me, 
Froebel has wrestled more successfully than any 
other practical educator. His solution of them 
makes him a teacher of moral hygiene as opposed 
to moral therapeutics, and he has no equal as a 
spiritual bacteriologist and a discoverer of spir- 
itual antitoxin. 

It does not fall within the compass of this chap- 
ter to consider in detail Froebel's many and fruit- 
ful suggestions with regard to the development of 
the virtues from seeds of emotion native to the 
soil of the mind. The limits of my present dis- 
cussion permit only the general statement that he 
bases moral education upon appeal to social sym- 
pathy and claims as its point of departure that 
'' feeling of community first uniting the child 
with mother, father, brothers, sisters, and to 
which later on is added the unmistakable discov- 
ery that father, mother, brothers, sisters, human 
beings in general, feel and know themselves to be 
in community and unity with a higher principle, 
i. e., with humanity and with God." ^ The ap- 
plication of this principle to the evolution of spe- 
cific virtues and the avoidance of specific vices, 
is to be found in the Mother Play. To this 
unique book I commend parents and teachers who 

' Education of Man, p. 25. 



220 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

feel the need of a metliod of moral education me- 
diatorial between the antitheses of letting children 
do as they please and either compelling them or 
bribing them to do as they ought. 

With insight into the truth that the feeling of 
community supplies the point of departure for 
moral education, we begin to realize that every 
virtue may be defined as a mode of action called 
forth by the relationship of individuals to a social 
whole. Obedience is the expression in action of 
that faith which is the ideal tie between the im- 
mature and the maturer soul. Kindness is good 
will, astir and active, between equal members of 
a collective whole. Cleanliness (which to super- 
ficial consideration appears a purely self-regard- 
ing virtue) is necessary in order that the members 
of a social whole may not offend one another's 
senses. Industry makes possible the contribution 
of something of value to the whole. Without 
order industry cannot be effective. He who is for- 
ever hunting things will have no time to do or 
make things. Punctuality is respect for other 
people's time and industry. Respect for the prop- 
erty of others is really respect for their " stored 
up " industry. Courtesy is treating each member 
of a whole as if he were that which he ought to 
be; or, differently stated, it is the recognition in 
manner that he is fulfilling his communal obliga- 
tions. In short, every one of these elementary vir- 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 221 

tues is rooted in and has been evolved from the 
social tie. All other virtues have the same source, 
and the way to develop them is by quickening the 
sense of solidarity. 

In old times great stress was placed upon the 
formation of the habits to which I have referred. 
But the old-time education failed to produce the 
best results because it insisted upon external com- 
pliance with a taught obligation and ignored the 
necessity of that internal compliance which alone 
is efficacious in building character. Many of the 
educators who to-day are insisting upon the sub- 
stitution of acquired for native reactions repeat 
the error of the ancient tradition. A single blow 
on molten iron has more shaping power than any 
number of blows on cold metal. So a child's char- 
acter is shaped more by a single act done because 
with all his heart he wants to do it, than by any 
number of acts perfunctorily performed. 

Right habits are formed through the frequent 
repetition of right actions, but right actions must 
be repeated through the child's own initiative. 
He who compels another to act against his own 
desires is a tyrant, and tyranny in him breeds re- 
bellion in his victim. He who knows how to stir 
in another impulses w^hich make him want to do 
the things he ought to do, is a benefactor and lib- 
erator. To accomplish this feat is to realize the 
highest ideal of moral education. 



222 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

I have concentrated the discussion of this chap- 
ter upon contrasting methods of education, as 
illustrated in the moral sphere, and I have done 
this advisedly. For the more completely methods 
are illustrated in one sphere, the easier it becomes 
to recognize their merits or defects in other 
spheres. It should now need but a few words to 
suggest that in intellectual, no less than in moral 
education, the method of surrender to immediate 
impulse must give way to the method of inhibi- 
tion, and the inhibition of lower interests must be 
accomplished by creating higher ones. 

It is an incontestable truth that no degree of 
intellectual culture is possible without the habit of 
attention, and attention is an inhibiting activity 
which concentrates intellect upon a chosen subject 
by checking its surrender to immediate sense 
stimuli or arresting its idle gaze upon a moving 
panorama of mental images. This inhibiting ac- 
tivity takes two forms : the form of voluntary at- 
tention, wherein will issues a fiat to intellect, and 
the form of selective interest, wherein either 
through native or acquired bias, intelligence oc- 
cupies itself with preferred objects. 

Through our acts of voluntary attention we 
become the determiners of our own selective in- 
terest, and choose for ourselves the ideas which 
shall rule our intelligence and decide our lives. 
On the other hand, since voluntary attention can 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 223 

be sustained only for an incredibly short time, our 
intellectual life would be poor, indeed, without 
the conspiring influence of passive attention or 
interest. " The sustained attention of the ge- 
nius," as Professor James reminds us, " is for the 
most part of the passive sort. The minds of 
geniuses are full of copious and original associa- 
tions. The subject of thought once started de- 
velops all sorts of fascinating consequences. The 
attention is led along from one of these to another 
in the most interesting manner, and never once 
tends to stray away.'' ^ In the drama of intellect, 
therefore, selective interest plays a role analogous 
to the " expulsive power of higher affections in 
the moral life." ^ 

The questions proposed in the earlier part of 
this chapter have been answered, so far as I can 
find their answers, in the teachings of history. It 
seems true that in the process of phylogenetic de- 
velopment each step " remembered its next in- 
ferior," but its memory was often one of disap- 
proval and the evolution of humanity has been 
'' an evolution by antagonism." Such goodness 
as men have achieved has been conquered in a war 

1 Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals, p. 102. 

2 To strengthen the power of voluntary attention and to 
create a rational selective interest are chief duties of education. 
In early childhood stress must be placed upon the latter aim. 
In the second chapter of this book I have tried to show how 
Froebel seeks to realize the aim. 



224 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

against nature. The ideals which incited the war 
have been discovered by a descent, or rather an 
ascent of man into his own essential being. It 
is an indisputable fact that mankind has often 
strayed from the path of progress. It is not neces- 
sary for individuals to repeat the abortive experi- 
ments of the race. It is not necessary for them 
to relive what humanity has outlived. Vestigial 
emotions are harmful to their possessors, and 
should be inhibited rather than indulged. In the 
individual recapitulation of race progress many 
results formerly reached by devious and winding 
paths are attainable by " short cuts.'' The duty 
of education is to help individuals to rewin an- 
cestral successes and deliver them from the neces- 
sity of repeating ancestral failures. 

When some fortunate experimenter succeeds in 
making a flying machine, those who follow him 
will not repeat plans that failed. In making their 
flying machines they will recapitulate only the 
successive steps of the triumphant process. The 
paradoxes of contemporary Rousseauism are due 
to the fact that its champions ignore this manifest 
condition of progress. They seem to think that 
every individual must experiment for himself, 
precisely as if no one had ever experimented be- 
fore. Hence they arrest the development of al- 
truistic feeling by persistent appeals to selfish- 
ness ; they arrest the growth of will by surrender 



THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE 225 

to native impulse, and they arrest the develop- 
ment of intellect by methods which chain the 
mind to sense-perception. They announce as a 
fundamental principle that the development of 
the individual must repeat that of the race. In 
practice they repeat nothing but a discarded ter- 
minus ah quo. 



16 



CHAPTEK VIII 

THE NEW EETUEN TO NATUKE 

Whether we are at one or at war with the 
new return to nature it surely behooves us to try 
to understand it, and we cannot understand it 
without some measure of sympathy with its cre- 
ative impulse. 

Emerson tells us that when quite young he 
was importuned by a valued adviser to respect the 
dear old doctrines of the church. He replied: 
^' What have I to do with the sacredness of tradi- 
tion if I live wholly from within ? '^ 

" But these impulses from which you live," 
suggested his friend, " m^y be from the devil." 

" They do not seem to me to be so," answered 
Emerson, " but if I am the deviFs child, I will 
live then from the devil." ^ 

This story lays bare the noblest impulse that 
beats in the heart of the new return to nature. 
The integrity of the universe seems bound up 

1 Essay on Self-Reliance. 
226 



THE NEW RETURN TO NATURE 227 

with the integrity of man's instincts. For these 
instincts are the record of seonic achievement. 
They prophesy the trend of future achievement. 
They are powers without whose conspiracy future 
achievement is impossible. Man's conscious ideals 
may be mistaken definitions of the cosmic pur- 
pose, whereas that purpose itself so far as accom- 
plished is written in his instincts and emotions. 
To distrust these holy records is to distrust the 
universe and introduce a fatal schism into our 
own souls. To give them frank and fearless ex- 
pression is to avow the cheery faith that we share 
the impulse by which all things live, and that we 
are not afraid to trust the honest purpose of the 
whole. We may not know whither we are going, 
but we are going with the universe. We should 
not try to swim against the cosmic stream but 
strike out boldly in the direction of its main cur- 
rent. Such as we are, nature has made us, or 
rather we are nature incarnate and should bravely 
and joyously accept ourselves as her product and 
revelation. 

" We are nature ; long have we wandered but 
now we return. We are each product and influ- 
ence of the globe. We have circled and circled 
until we have returned home again. We have 
voided all but freedom and all but our own joy." ^ 

» Walt Whitman. 



228 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

The power and appeal of the pedagogic creed 
based upon recognition of instinct as the stored-up 
result of cosmic action, was largely derived from 
the breadth of its alliances. It must be frankly 
recognized as the educational application of a 
fashion of thought — or rather a fashion of feeling 
— which for several decades exercised compelling 
sway over many minds. Its source was the evo- 
lutionary dictum that all things may be explained 
by their process of becoming. Caught in the toils 
of this specious error, men sought for God in the 
wind, the earthquake, and the fire, and turned 
deaf ears to the still, small voice which speaks to 
the listening soul. Through the influence of the 
same error all customs, traditions, and institu- 
tions were interpreted as vanishing expressions of 
different racial souls. Art was belittled by de- 
fining it as mere copy of nature and forgetting or 
denying its ideal mission ^^ to transmit the high- 
est and best feelings to which men have risen." 
Poets and novelists sounded a challenge for " ab- 
solute surrender to the manhood current within," 
and a vast body of literature was created, whose 
most " discernible characteristic," as described by 
its admirers, was ^' the movement away from the 
summits of life downward toward the bases of 
life ; from the heights of civilization to the primi- 
tive springs of action ; from the thin-aired regions 
of consciousness which are ruled over by tact to 



THE NEW RETURN TO NATURE 229 

the underworld of unconsciousness — where are 
situated the mighty workshops and where toils on 
forever the cyclopean youth — Instinct." ^ 

A friend has related to me a dream which 
seems almost typical of this attitude of mind. 

In her sleep she found herself upon a straight, 
narrow, uphill path, bordered by white lilies. 
She climbed wearily, but resolutely, looking nei- 
ther to the right nor to the left. At last she stood 
upon the top of a high hill from which she gazed 
upon the boundless expanse of an emerald sea. 
Instantly, with the cry " Depth is better than 
height," she had plunged beneath its waves. 

Depth is better than height — so declared that 
now vanishing mode of thought which turned its 
attention away from the sky toward which we 
strive to the dust from which we sprang; away 
from ideals to instincts ; away from the bitter 
strife between what is and what ought to be, to 
the joy of free abandon to native impulse. The 
master passion of the new return to nature was 
life. Living was its longing; more life its goal. 
Man palpitates with energy and there is ruddy 
blood in his veins. He should not permit his 
mind to be '^ sicklied o'er with the pale cast of 
thought " and refusing to torment himself with 
the mystery of life, should fling himself into the 

1 James Lane Allen. 



230 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

excitement of living. For what he is the universe 
has made him, and now he and the universe are 
journeying together toward some undiscovered 
and undiscoverable goal. 

The ideal incentive of the new return to nature 
has never been more sympathetically presented 
than in Whitman's Song of Myself: 

Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like 

cheerful boatmen, 
For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings; 
They sent influences to look after what was to hold 

me. 

Before I was born out of my mother generations 
guided me. 

My embryo has never been torpid; nothing can over- 
lay it. 

For it the nebula cohered to an orb. 

The long slow strata piled to rest it on; 

Vast vegetables gave it sustenance; 

Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and 
deposited it with care. 

All forces have been steadily employed to complete 

and delight me. 
Now, on this spot I stand with my robust soul. 

The inspiration of this jubilant song derives 
from the conviction that each individual is 
product and epitome of the universe and may 
therefore dare to trust his robust soul. Such 



THE NEW RETURN TO NATURE 231 

a feat of daring has been attempted on a co- 
lossal scale, and its history is simply the history 
of the free-play movement in the kindergarten 
writ large. As that movement started with the 
demand for free self-expression and culminated in 
swift surrender to whim and arresting accent 
upon the motor habits of pre-human ancestors, so 
the history of the new^ return to nature through- 
out its entire sweep show^s a rapid regress from 
civilization to savagism, and from gay conspir- 
acy with cosmic forces to the defiant or abject ac- 
ceptance of a fated universe. The literature 
which started with a challenge for surrender to 
the manhood current within, has ended by cre- 
ating a disheartening series of pathological per- 
sonalities and by setting each helpless slave of 
imperative impulse in surroundings which move 
to his own destruction ^^ the machinery of his 
being." The conception of art as representation 
culminated in representations which prostituted 
art. The search of nature to find out God resulted 
in the discovery of blind forces and chance re- 
sults ; and all that evolutionary science can tell us 
of the future is that whatever matter and motion 
have done they will surely undo, and what has 
been evolved is fated to be dissolved. Finally, 
the racial souls heralded as the ancestors of insti- 
tutional ideals, have turned out to be themselves 
mere corollaries of brain structures created by 



232 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

heredity and transformable only by cross-breed- 
ing. Surrender to this fatalistic view of human 
nature has called forth denials of those cardinal 
doctrines of Christian democracy which declare 
the sanctity of the individual and impose upon all 
men the duty to safeguard the liberty of each. It 
has fostered an oriental and pagan disregard for 
the masses of men, degraded humanity from the 
image of God to an accidental and vanishing type 
of life, and reduced history to a meaningless 
tragedy. In so far as its conclusions are accepted 
life ceases to be worth living. " It is what it 
ought not to be, and passage from it into nothing- 
ness is the only good." Thus, starting with the 
repudiation of human ideals and the glorification 
of human instincts, the new return to nature 
has culminated, like its historic prototype, in a 
reign of terror. It is burning itself up in the 
hellish fire it has lighted and may be safely left 
to the consuming flames of its own dialectic pro- 
cess. 

It has been urged as a criticism against Froe- 
bel that his studies of childhood were conducted 
under the incitement of that philosophical pre- 
supposition which affirms that in the structure of 
consciousness must be sought the key to human 
development, and it has been tacitly claimed as a 
merit of the child-study movement that the ob- 
servations of its advocates are made with more 



THE NEW RETURN TO NATURE 233 

candid and unprejudiced intellects. Either this 
claim means nothing, or it means that in their 
own judgment the minds of contemporary child 
students are unbiased by any presupposition. It 
may therefore not be superfluous to suggest that 
a presuppositionless intellect is an impossibility, 
though it may be freely granted that many an in- 
tellect is swayed by presuppositions of which it 
is unconscious. 

The great majority of child students who have 
conducted examinations and replied to question- 
naires, have doubtless done so without a conscious 
hypothesis as a guide in their investigations. 
The leaders of the movement, however, have sum- 
marized results and formed conclusions under the 
influence of a series of presuppositions implicit 
in the general statement that all facts and subjects 
are explained by retracing their process of devel- 
opment. 

It is through the reaction of these presupposi- 
tions that attention has been diverted from ideals 
to instincts and undue accent placed upon hered- 
ity and environment. 

Kindergartners who wish to choose intelligently 
between Froebel and his latter-day critics, must 
therefore face and settle the question whether the 
process through which a thing has come to be 
explains w^iat it is or w^hether each thing is only 
explained when set in a clear relation to its origin 



234 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

and goal. Thinkers accepting the former view 
will not only seek to appease intellect with proc- 
esses of becoming, but will always tend to em- 
phasize earlier and lower stages of development. 
Thinkers accepting the latter view, will seek the 
eternal reality which includes all processes of be- 
coming and will be impelled to the conviction 
that completely realized self-consciousness is both 
the origin and the goal of cosmic evolution, and 
must therefore be the standard which determines 
the ascent of life. Hence they will be quick to 
discern in nature a tendency '^ to develop such 
beings as possess internality and energize to re- 
alize ideals," * and prompt to recognize this imma- 
nent teleology as the highest revelation of the 
doctrine of evolution. 

The fundamental tenet of the IN^eo-Rousseau 
creed is that instinct strictly defined as " inher- 
ited association between stimuli and particular 
bodily reactions," is the sole and sufficient guide 
of life. This dogma implies a biologic psychology 
which holds that mind is conterminous with brain 
structure and discredits consciousness as an " up- 
start novelty " ; ^ a ^^ provincial oracle " ; ^ a " wart 
raised by the sting of sin";* a " late, partial and 

• Psychologic Foundations of Education, William T. Harris, 
p. 21. 

2 Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 61. ^ ihid., Preface, p. vi. 

* Ihid., vol. ii, p. 67. 



THE NEW RETURN TO NATURE 235 

perhaps essentially abnormal and remedial out- 
crop of the great underlying life of man-soul." ^ 
The outcome of this psychology is that man is a 
^^ specialized and partial being," and the human 
soul " but one of many types of mind in the 
world " ; perhaps a ^' temporary and accidental 
form which force or life has taken on " ; at best 
" a transition from a lower to a higher race to 
be evolved later." ^ 

To thinkers accepting these conclusions, man, 
conceived as a self-creative being, able to free him- 
self from the chains of antecedent and environing 
causation, ceases to exist. The permanent and 
universal human person is submerged in the cau- 
sal stream. With this submergence of the human 
person is sunk the conception of personality as 
the power whence the universe proceeds; and the 
social union of all personal spirits as both the 

> Adolescence, Preface, p. vii. 

' "If we had all that our heredity could possibly bestow, 
we should be but specialized and partial beings. ... It 
is not inconceivable that many a species that has become 
extinct took with it out of the world the promise and potency 
of a higher psychic development than that of man, but of a 
radically different type from his. . . . Although the highest 
being that is, he is perhaps not the highest, or even among 
the highest, that might have been, to say nothing of what 
may be in other planets, or that will be in ours. The best and 
only key to explain mind in man is mind in the animals he 
has sprung from, and in his own infancy, which so faintly 
recapitulates them." — Ibid., vol. ii., p. 65. 



236 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

goal toward which it progresses and the eternal 
reality through which it is finally explained. 
With loss of divine and human personality the 
values of life cease to appeal as standards by 
which to measure education and the chief, if not 
the sole concern of pedagogics is directed toward 
" the ways and means of investing man's capital 
of native instincts.'' 

The pith of all Neo-Eousseau doctrines is that 
man and the universe are developing through a 
process of mutual action and reaction but that 
toward what climax or anti-climax they are mov- 
ing, we do not and cannot know. The result of 
their reciprocal action is deposited in and revealed 
through our basal instincts, and therefore the duty 
of education is to assure each child free scope for 
the exercise of every native proclivity. 

The pith of Froebelian doctrine is that man 
and the universe are evolving in a discernible di- 
rection toward a definable goal. In a preceding 
chapter of this book I have described this goal as 
an infinite community of souls, each of which ful- 
fills itself through communion with all others.^ 
Such a goal of the cosmic process implies that the 
universe is psychical in its nature; that there is 
kinship between man and the infinite source 
whence he proceeds, and that since the distinctive 

» See Chapter II, pp. 63-64. 



THE NEW RETURN TO NATURE 237 

characteristic of man is self-consciousness, the 
structure of consciousness and not the basal in- 
stincts of men must determine both the subject- 
matter and the method of education. 

The transcendental self-determining energy 
which achieves and reveals in self-consciousness 
its own ideal form, is present wherever there is 
life. This self-determining energy or will created 
instincts by acting in definite ways. But it did 
not die when it had made these instincts — neither 
did it abdicate the throne of life in their favor. 
It is just as alive, active, and sovereign as it 
ever was. It is able to modify the instincts 
which are deposits of its own past deeds. It is 
able to undo its own past mistakes. Blind in 
plants, dim of vision even in the highest animals, 
it achieves eyes in the intellect of man, and there- 
after increasingly directs itself through conscious 
ideals. 

In the dark underworld of unconsciousness the 
Cyclopean youth. Instinct, may perhaps toil on for- 
ever. But upon the shining heights of life the 
celestial youth. Divine Humanity, shall hereafter 
renounce his brute and savage heredity and claim 
his ^^ heredity from God.'' He shall repudiate 
instincts that are evil and get rid of instincts that 
are outgrown. He shall purge valid instincts of 
partiality and redeem them from distortion. He 
shall create new instincts as allies in his struggle 



238 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

for freedom. All these things, and greater things 
than these, he shall do through the power of 
ideals which will be ascending definitions of his 
own personality and ascending revelations of the 
Infinite Person from whom he proceeds. 



CHAPTEE IX 

THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 

The concentric programme was carried into the 
kindergarten by that tidal wave of Herbartianism 
which some years since swept over our school sys- 
tem. The free-play programme was the outcome 
of the child-study movement. It is well to remind 
ourselves that neither of these now vanishing 
methods arose within the kindergarten, but were 
due to the influence of educators not imbued with 
the ideals of which it is the embodiment. The 
same fact holds with regard to the living issues to 
be discussed in this chapter. They have arisen 
through the pressure of outside influence, and em- 
body theories not only at variance with but de- 
structive of the fundamental principles of Froebel. 

As the most rapid approach to the living is- 
sues now dividing the kindergarten public, I pre- 
sent a programme published in the Kindergarten 
Magazine for October, 1907.^ The most cursory 

1 I present this programme because it illustrates all the 
fallacies of the industrial kindergarten and because through 
the pages of the Kindergarten Magazine it reaches thousands 
of young and inexperienced kindergartners. 

239 



240 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

glance will disclose the fact that it is concentric 
in its form, but differs from its Herbartian pro- 
genitor by placing its accent upon primitive indus- 
tries instead of primitive culture products. The 
correlating center of this programme is the potato, 
and the exercises for the several days of the week 
are as follows : ^ 

I desire to state explicitly that I do not intend to imply- 
that any leading representative of the industrial ideal in the 
kindergarten would approve of this programme. 

As actually carried out in the kindergarten, the industrial 
ideal assumes many different forms. Some kindergartners 
merely represent household industries in play. Others actually 
introduce such industries into the kindergarten, but call for 
them at comparatively rare intervals and do not make them 
centers of correlation. It is impossible to describe all shades 
of opinion and practice. Judging, however, from printed 
articles and exhibits of kindergarten work, from lectures, and 
from the kindergarten supplies called for in different cities, the 
following tendencies would seem to be quite widespread. 

1. The tendency to make household industries a part of 
kindergarten activity. 

2. The tendency to supplant play by work. 

3. Preponderant appeal to the understanding. 

4. Insistence upon functional values. 

5. The substitution of constructive work for free self- 
expression. 

6. The too great restriction of kindergarten games to the 
representation of industrial activities. 

7. The elimination of that appeal to imagination through 
typical acts which is the most characteristic and valuable 
feature oi the Froebelian kindergarten. 

> The following prefatory note explains the general ideas 
underlying this programme: 

"This subject should begin with the planting of the potato 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 241 

I. PLANTING OF THE POTATO 

The digging and planting of potatoes. Gather them 
into a pile, load one of the children's wagons, carry 
them to the cellar of the person to whom the potatoes 
are to be given, and store them away. 

IL BOILING OF POTATOES 

(a) Let the children wash and peel potatoes, (h) 
In the interval of waiting for them to be cooked, feed 
the peelings to the chickens, or clean a water bottle 
with some of them by breaking them up and shaking 
them around in the same with water. This whole les- 
son can be given in the kindergarten; hut if at the 
home of one of the children, the potatoes should not 
he eaten hy the children, hut the work can he done as 
a service to the family, though one potato might he 
tasted. Enough more than those required for the 
family dinner should be cooked that a few may be 
taken to the school for use the next day. 

in. FRY POTATOES, USING SOME OF 

THOSE BOILED ON THE 

PREVIOUS DAY 

(In contrast to the lesson of the day before, let this 
one be given in the kindergarten.) 

in the spring. The potato can be harvested in the autumn. 
As the season of frost approaches the children begin to wear 
warmer clothes, the leaves to fall, and the family to make its 
preparation for the winter. At this time let the children 
inspect their garden and decide upon whom to bestow their 
CFop of potatoes, and then store them away for the winter." — 
Kindergarten Primary Magazine, October, 1907. 
17 



242 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

(tz) Each one can slice one potato, and turn the 
same into the skillet, (h) While waiting for them 
to brown, assign different occupations to different 
members of the group. Two at a time can watch the 
potatoes^ some set the table and decorate it with au- 
tumn leaves, while others put the kitchen corner of 
the kindergarten into order, sweeping the floor and 
washing the soiled pans that previously contained their 
potatoes. Of course, at least an hour's time is essen- 
tial to complete this lesson in an orderly way. 



IV. GRATING OF POTATOES FOR POTATO 
PANCAKES 

(a) The children grate the potatoes in water. Turn 
this grated mass into a cheese-cloth bag and squeeze 
out the water (saving this water with its sediment 
until the following day), (b) Beat both parts of one 
egg, pour it into the grated mass, thinning it with 
a little milk, grease the frying pan, and bake the 
cakes, letting each one take part. Let this be done 
as a surprise for one of the teachers, the children 
presenting them to her. The children, of course, 
should have a taste. They should* he given time to 
wash all the dishes and to put everything away. 



V. THE MAKING OF STARCH 

This can be done by pouring off the colored water 
from the sediment left in the pan from the previous 
lesson. The sediment will prove to be starch. Let 
the children find this out by the pouring on and off 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 243 

of clean water till it grows entirely clear. Draw 
off the last water entirely, and let the starch dry 
in the sun. 



VI. THE DOLLS' WASHDAY 

The dolls come to the kindergarten with their soiled 
clothes, and the children wash them. Be sure to have 
them sort the white and colored clothes and make 
laundry books. See a more complete description of 
how to plan this lesson in the kindergarten outline 
under the subject of water.^ 



VII. IRONING DAY 

Of course, the ironing of these clothes must follow 
the washing, and then the dolls can be dressed in 
their clean clothes and be invited to listen to a 
story, and look at some appropriate pictures. 

See the set of pictures illustrated by Ludwig 
Eichter, There are several drawings consisting of 
children washing their doll's clothes, and the like. See 
his Aus dem Kinderleben containing twenty-four 
pictures, songs and rhymes. 

In all these lessons while the children are busy with 
doing, call their attention to the different changes as 
they occur throughout a complete process. Do not 
tell them beforehand that the potato contains starch; 
let the truth present itself. It will be observed that 
all these miniature science lessons, however, contain 
a strong ethical value, the children's activity being 
based upon an inspiration to serve others. 

' (All italics mine.) 



244 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

No person imbued with the educational prin- 
ciples of Froebel can read this programme without 
an immediate perception of the fact that its au- 
thor has either consciously rejected or uncon- 
sciously lost the idea which originally created the 
kindergarten. As has been repeatedly stated in 
this book that creative idea was to freight the 
form of play with the values of life. The char- 
acteristic feature of the programme presented is 
that in it the form of play has been supplanted 
by the form of work. 

To realize the meaning of this transposition we 
must consider even more carefully than we have 
done hitherto the respective marks and values of 
play and work. The characteristic quality of play 
is that it is an activity which is its own end. It 
is therefore free to modify or change itself. The 
following description of a little child's play with 
her blocks will illustrate this quality of freedom, 
and suggest its value : 

The child sits on the floor and I ask her to make a 
church like the one she sees pictured in her book. She 
begins, lays the foundation of the church: a long line 
of blocks laid straight, with another line crossing the 
first about two-thirds of its length. Then suddenly 
her face lights up and she quickly takes more blocks 
and lays a third line parallel with the second and 
crossing the long line at one third of its length. 
" What are you doing that for ? " I ask ; " I never 
taught you to make a church with two cross lines." 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 245 

" Oh, no ; I am making an animal," says she, " with a 
head and a tail and four legs." She has, to my knowl- 
edge, never made an animal like this before, and she 
certainly did not set out to make an animal. It had 
come to her in her progress with the church that the 
arrangement might be altered so as to make an ani- 
mal. That is, her mental picture had come, in her 
action upon it, especially in laying the cross line of 
blocks, to be assimilated with her old mental picture 
of an animal; and forthwith, by the addition of an- 
other line like the former, the church turned into an 
animal. Now this is an invention in the strictest 
sense. It is peculiar to the child. Who ever before 
made an animal out of a church? What external in- 
fluence suggested to the child the similarity between 
the essential lines of the two objects? What former 
single mental picture of her own adequately explains 
this sudden outcome? If none of these, then all the 
sources are exhausted and we must say that she is an 
inventor as much as any historical genius is who has 
enriched the world by his thought. 

But now the child does something further; she calls 
upon everybody in the room to come and see the ani- 
mal which she has made; she, no less than the first 
Maker of whom we are told, looks upon the thing 
which she hath made, and lo! it is very good. And 
then she amuses herself by making the animal again 
and again, and saying also, " It is not a church, for a 
church doesn't have these two ends (the third line 
across), I have made it into an animal." So — and this 
is her second invention — she has changed her thought of 
herself. To herself she is now a person who can make 
animals out of churches. She is in a new sense — or 
at least from a new point of view — an agent; her 



246 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

growing sense of her own originality, power over 
things, freedom to depart from the thraldom of imi- 
tation has received an impulse. The next time she 
comes to play with her blocks the splendid invention 
of this occasion is full in her mind, and the blocks, 
together with the suggestions which I make for their 
use, are to her things for her domineering ego to 
trifle with, despise, and utilize as never before. She 
has, therefore, come to a new thought of herself, and 
this is also a discovery, an invention.^ 



Through play the child becomes original and 
conscious of originality. He feels himself a crea- 
tive first cause ; rejoices in his sense of freedom ; 
and is impelled to further exercise of creative ac- 
tivity. Through the reaction of creative deeds he 
creates himself as a unique individual. Without 
this self-creative activity all human beings would 
tend to become tiresome repetitions of one dull 
pattern. 

In contrast with play, which is its ov^m motive 
and whose characteristic mark is its freedom to 
change itself, work is activity directed to the ac- 
complishment of a purpose and its demand is that 
the worker shall hold himself persistently to his 
task. In play, activity and end coalesce; in work 
they fall apart. The accent of play is upon a proc- 
ess of activity; the accent of work upon its prod- 

1 Social and Ethical Interpretations, James Mark Baldwin, 
pp. 107, 108. 



i 

THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 247 

net. The value of work is that it subordinates the 
self; the value of play that it creates the self. 

Many recent discussions with regard to play and 
work betray confusion of mind. It is often as- 
sumed that the distinction between work and play 
implies that some activities always preserve the 
form of play, while others can never lose the form 
of work. The truth of this assumed implication 
being denied, an effort is made to remove entirely 
the boundary line between the two types of activ- 
ity. It is urged that many games of strength and 
skill demand a persistent training which is not its 
own end and reward. Here, therefore, is play 
turning over into work. Little children enjoy 
cooking, sweeping, washing, and ironing for them- 
selves and apart from their results. Here is work 
turning over into play. " Up to the sixth year," 
writes Miss Dopp, '^ when the object begins to 
stand out more clearly in the child's mind, when 
the inner and the outer begin to differentiate, 
there is no distinction between work and play.^ 
To be sure there are differences in activities very 
early, but if not fettered by external conditions 
the activity is equally free play whether it serves 
the purpose of utility in the sense of the adult; 
whether it serves the purpose of play, as making 
a dolPs house, or whether it is purely imaginary, 
as in the case of dramatic play. It is important 

» Is not the reason for this, that the child never works? 



248 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

that the child get his full share of each variety of 
play and that its free character be maintained." ^ 

The argument advanced is vitiated by the fal- 
lacy of the assumption whence it proceeds. The 
distinction between play and work does not imply 
that different activities are bound forever to their 
respective forms. The same activity may take on 
at one time the form of play and at another the 
form of work. The difference between activities 
depends upon the tendency to assume preponder- 
antly one or the other form. Through a tacit rec- 
ognition of prevailing tendency, the common sense 
of mankind has relegated some activities to the 
class of play and others to the class of work. The 
housemaid who knew she had become a Christian 
because contrary to former practice she always 
swept dust from out the corners and from under 
the bed divined truly the criterion of work. She 
knew that the purpose of sweeping was a clean 
room, and that she was the instrument of this 
purpose. 

Activities which offer scope for originality will 
tend to assume preponderantly the form of play; 
those which do not permit original action will 
tend to assume preponderantly the form of work. 
There is, therefore, a maximum possibility for 
play in dramatic games and in building and ar- 

» The Place of Industries in Elementary Education, Katha- 
rine Elizabeth Dopp, pp. 116, 117. 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 249 

rangement exercises, and a minimum possibility 
for play in cooking, laundry work, sweeping and 
dusting. It is true that from time to time little 
children imitate these several activities for the 
pleasure of the imitation. Such pleasure, how- 
ever, must wane with their enforced repetition, 
and it is impossible to make them integral exer- 
cises of the kindergarten without changing play 
into work. Moreover, it is unlikely that such 
work will be well done, and therefore its educative 
value will be lost. To cook coarsely, scrub, sweep, 
and dust carelessly, wash without cleansing and 
iron without smoothing is simply to form bad 
habits and obscure ideals of cleanliness, thorough- 
ness, and refinement. 

The argument against making household indus- 
tries integral parts of kindergarten activity con- 
denses itself into the statement that this cannot be 
done without entirely revolutionizing the form of 
that activity. Fairness demands that we should 
consider the justifying reasons offered for the pro- 
posed revolution. The reasons which seem to have 
had most influence are lucidly and precisely stated 
by Miss Katharine Dopp in a book entitled The 
Place of Industries in Early Education, and I 
cannot do better than quote her words: 

From the remotest to the most recent times, in the 
simplest as well as in the most highly organized so- 
cieties, industry has been a dominant force in the up- 



250 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

building and maintaining of social structures. In the 
more simple social groups it is possible to perceive 
very clearly the fundamental place of industry in so- 
ciety and the vitality of its relation to all other activ- 
ities of life. In such societies it appears as the ma- 
trix that holds within itself the other interests of life 
which it nourishes until they hecome strong enough 
to support themselves.^ . . . 

There is a closer relationship than is usually recog- 
nized between the activities of the child and the se- 
rious activities of society in all ages.^ . . . 

It is an accepted truth that those racial activities 
which are most ancient and most prolonged have had 
the most potent influence in determining the attitudes 
of mankind. Attitudes due to such causes appear 
earliest, and although they may early be overlaid with 
more complex habits, they remain strong throughout 
life; and when, as decay sets in, the more complex 
habits one by one disappear, these native instincts 
reassert themselves and persist till the last. 

There are instincts that have resulted from later 
racial activities, but their early appearance as well as 
their permanence is in direct proportion to the re- 
moteness and duration of the activities which pro- 
duced them. Comparatively recent racial activities 
certainly operate in determining the attitudes of the 
child; but they operate not through physical, but 
through social heredity. 

Darwin is a notable example of those scientists who 
have attempted to explain human emotional attitudes 
by reference to those of animals. However fruitful 
such an investigation may be, it seems to promise less 

> The Place of Industries in Elementary Education, Kath- 
arine Elizabeth Dopp, p. 2. 2 Ibid., p. 6. 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 251 

for educational purposes than investigations along 
racial lines; for it must be remembered that continu- 
ity in emotional attitudes can be explained only on the 
basis of biological function. For this reason educa- 
tion must wait upon biological science until the condi- 
tions needed are established, and even then the use 
of the materials offered is open to the charge of ex- 
plaining the more clear by the less clear. Until we 
know more of the consciousness of animals we are 
scarcely in a position to make a profitable use of ani- 
mal psychology in interpreting the activities of the 
child. 

When we attempt to interpret the attitudes of the 
child in the light of the activities of the race there 
is more hope of success; for the continuity of the bio- 
logical function upon which the continuity of emo- 
tional attitudes depends is assured.^ 

* «- -X- » » 

In proportion as society lays hold of instinctive re- 
actions and harnesses them to present social needs the 
process of education is promoted. The most serious 
mistake has been the tendency to ignore the psychical 
attitudes of the child by imposing upon him the highly 
organized products of present social life. It is begin- 
ning to be more generally recognized, however, that 
education^ to be vital, must be grounded deep in 
physical heredity, and to be of real social service 
must be guided and refined in the light of our own 
highest social ideals. The natural emotional reac- 
tions are fixed, and we need not expect any funda- 
mental change. It is the part of wisdom to build upon 

• The Place of Industries in Elementary Education, Kath- 
arine Elizabeth Dopp, pp. 61, 62. (Italics mine.) 



252 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

this sure foundation, rather than to seek one among 
the shifting sands of more recent times. The achieve- 
ments of recent civilization are of value not in deter- 
mining the foundation, but in fashioning the struc- 
ture that is reared upon it/ 

* * -x- * * 

Civilization is only as yesterday when viewed with 
reference to the long period of human development . . . 
the deep-seated, permanent, and abiding impulses are 
the result of racial experiences before man had 
emerged from the savage stage; . . . later racial activ- 
ities influence psychical attitudes in a much less per- 
manent way.^ 

***** 

The child lives in the present. He must find his 
satisfaction in an immediate way. His pleasurable 
emotions are bound up with his instinctive reactions. 
Because these reactions have been marked out by the 
serious activities of the race in its first steps in human 
progress, because they represent the processes of mod- 
ern civilization in their most rudimentary forms, they 
serve to present the educational opportunity for estab- 
lishing helpful relations between the life of the past 
and that of the present. By making use of these in- 
stinctive reactions it is possible to make a gradual 
transition from the dramatic and play interests of 
the child to the more serious interests of the adult.^ 
***** 

The house industries are especially significant with 
reference to elementary education. They represent 

1 The Place of Industries in Elementary Education, Kath- 
arine Elizabeth Depp, pp. 88, 89. (Italics mine.) 

2 Ibid., p. 8. 3 Ibid., pp. 89, 90. 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 253 

the experiences of the race in industrial activities, 
whether private or public, through the long ages which 
preceded the handicraft period. They are important 
as factors in the shaping of the early forms of our in- 
stitutions, and give a significance to much that would 
be meaningless apart from such a relation. They rep- 
resent the activities which were instrumental in the 
formation of our physical coordinations and psy- 
chical attitudes. In relation to the early years of 
development they are much more important than the 
industrial activities of later periods, because they cor- 
respond more closely to the psychical attitudes of the 
child than do the activities of later periods. The ac- 
tivities of later epochs are not without their influ- 
ence in shaping the attitudes of the child, but they 
operate more through social than through physical 
heredity.^ 

Let us summarize the thoughts presented in 
these several extracts in order that we may grasp 
their logical connection and appreciate the peda- 
gogical conclusion to which they point. 

I 
Industry is " the matrix that holds within itself 
the other interests of life." 

II 

The native interests and instinctive reactions of 
contemporary childhood have been created by the 
industrial activities of society throughout the ages. 

1 The Place of Industries in Elementary Education, pp. 
14, 15. (All italics mine.) 



254 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

III 

" In proportion as society lays hold of instinc- 
tive reactions and harnesses them to present social 
needs the process of education is promoted/^ 
^' To be vital education must be grounded in phys- 
ical heredity." 

IV 

" Those racial activities which are most ancient 
and most prolonged have had the most potent in- 
fluence in determining the attitudes (or instinc- 
tive reactions) of mankind. 



" In relation to the early years of development 
household industries are much more important 
than the industrial activities of later periods be- 
cause they correspond more closely to the psychi- 
cal attitudes of the child." 

The reader will remember that the free-play 
programme was dominated by the ideal of biologic 
recapitulation. The salient fact with regard to 
the plan of education proposed in the extracts 
quoted is that it deserts biologic recapitulation in 
favor of historic recapitulation. Its primary as- 
sumption is that contemporary mankind can be 
more adequately explained by human than by 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 255 

brute heredity. The deeds and expressions of ani- 
mals and men have made man all he is. The 
deeds of men have been more influential in shap- 
ing contemporary mankind than the deeds of ani- 
mals. The most ancient and most prolonged 
racial activities have contributed most to the shap- 
ing of man. Primitive activities explain the in- 
stinctive reactions of childhood, and education 
should begin by repeating them. These primitive 
activities are represented to-day by household in- 
dustries. Therefore, let little children cook, wash, 
scrub, sweep, and dust. 

These statements bristle with unproved as- 
sumptions. Let us begin with the final one. Is 
it true that all our present household industries 
correspond with primitive activities ? In the 
mind of any candid person a visit to the St. Louis 
Fair would have dispelled the idea that this ques- 
tion could be answered in the afiirmative. The 
one fact which glared upon the observer as he 
walked about among the primitive peoples there 
assembled was that they washed little and 
scrubbed, swept, and dusted not at all. Cleanli- 
ness in all its forms is tainted with modernity. 
When, therefore, we insist that little children 
shall repeat the cleansing processes of contempo- 
rary life, what are we doing but " seeking a foun- 
dation for education among the shifting sands of 
recent times ? " 



256 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

We may close our eyes to the inconsistency of 
the industrial programme, but we must not evade 
the doubts which assail our minds with regard to 
the strength of its theoretic foundation. Can man 
be adequately explained either by his brute or hu- 
man ancestry, or by both conjoined ? 7s industry 
the fountain source of the arts and institutions of 
society? The proof offered in support of these 
assumptions seems to me insufficient. In the final 
chapter of this book I shall offer an alternative 
explanation of man, and in the next preceding 
chapter discuss the relationship of industries to 
arts and institutions. For the moment I must 
restrict myself to a series of denials and a brief 
confession of faith. I do not believe that the 
psychical attitudes of childhood can be fully ex- 
plained by physical heredity. I deny the state- 
ment that even instinctive reactions have been 
created solely or chiefly by racial activities of in- 
dustrial type. I am sure that industry is not " the 
fountain source of the arts and institutions of so- 
ciety." I conceive man as self -creative energy. I 
conceive history as the process through which man 
makes himself actually what from the beginning 
he is ideally. I recognize in play, art, literature, 
ethics, and religion, aboriginal expressions of the 
free human spirit and denying that they are 
the offspring of industry confess them its pro- 
genitors. 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 257 

Referring the reader to the final chapter of this 
book for the vindication of my confessed faith, I 
pass on to consider an additional reason urged for 
the introduction of household activities into the 
kindergarten. ^^ The child of to-day/' we are told, 
'^ has no opportunity to observe or participate in 
primitive forms of industrial activity and there- 
fore understands nothing that is going on around 
him.'' Carpet sweepers conceal what the broom 
revealed ; the machines used in laundry work hide 
the actual process of cleansing; the sewing ma- 
chine bars acquaintance with needle and thread; 
spindle and distaff are instruments unknown. 
The homemade candle has yielded to the electric 
light. Vehicles are decreasingly moved by ani- 
mals and increasingly moved by invisible forces. 
In short, nothing is done in the direct way that a 
child can understand. In virtue of human inven- 
tions he is born into a wonder-world and lives in 
a kind of magic dream. To dissolve this dream of 
magic is a prime duty of education, and the 
method of accomplishing it is to repeat the stages 
of the industrial process from " the stage of the 
hand, through that of the tool, to that of the ma- 
chine." '^ The child who has traced the tool from 
the action of his own body through the varied 
stages of its development, has felt as he wielded it, 
the rhythmic movements of economical adjust- 
ments. He is now prepared to see how the mechan- 

18 



25^ EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

ical principles with which he became familiar in 
the study of primitive life are utilized by means 
of better appliances, and how this action which 
has been rendered rhythmical, and hence auto- 
matic, may be handed over to a machine.'' ^ 

Postponing to a later chapter all discussion of 
the proposed evolution of industries in its relation 
to the education of older children, let us concen- 
trate our attention upon the demand that little 
children shall repeat the primitive stage of indus- 
trial development, and that one object of the repe- 
tition is to deliver them out of a world of magic 
into a world of comprehended fact. The clear 
definition of a purpose helps us to decide our own 
attitude toward it. Let me be entirely frauk, and 
descending at once to the final root of difference 
between the industrial ideal and the ideal of the 
Froebelian Kindergarten, confess that I for one 
have not the least desire to dissolve the dream of 
wonder in which young children live. " To the 
child," says a thoughtful essayist, " the tree and 
the lamp-post are as natural and as artificial as 
each other, or rather neither of them is natural 
but both are supernatural. For both are splendid 
and unexplained. The flower with which God 
crowns the one and the flame with which Sam the 
lamplighter crowns the other are equally of the 

1 The Place of Industries in Elementary Education, pp. 
170, 171. 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 259 

gold of fairy land.'' ^ Far be it from me to in- 
vade this realm of miracles. Childhood is the age 
of dreams and one of the greatest of educational 
offenses is to waken prematurely the dreaming 
soul. 

The method called forth by the industrial ideal 
involves a persistent and exclusive appeal to the 
understanding and thereby condemns itself. The 
reader will doubtless have observed in the potato 
programme the careful attention given to the con- 
nection between potatoes, starch, and laundry 
work. In another programme by the same kin- 
dergartner a similar connection is made between 
corn, corn-meal, and cooking. Children are sent 
to search for flat stones; between these stones the 
corn is ground; finally, a tripod is set up and 
mush is cooked. It is conceivable that each house- 
hold industry might be illustrated in similar fash- 
ion and doubtless such illustration would conduce 
to its better understanding. The important ques- 
tions to consider, however, are the value of this 
result ; the relative value of other educational aims 
which must be neglected if this one be made para- 
mount, and finally, the adaptation of this particu- 
lar form of education to the stage of development 
represented by children between the ages of four 
and six. 

The potato programme must not be dismissed 
» Heretics, Chesterton. 



260 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

•until the reader has become aware of its labored 
attempt to justify all exercises by the criterion of 
immediate utility. Potatoes are dug, loaded on 
wagons, and carried to the cellar of a chosen 
beneficiary. They are boiled for a family lunch 
and made into pancakes as a surprise to the kin- 
dergartner. Starch is made for use when the chil- 
dren wash their doll's clothes. This programme, 
however, covers only an hour of the time spent 
daily in the kindergarten, and the question arises 
whether during the remaining period purpose and 
prose make way for play and poetry. There can 
be no doubt as to the answer which industrial 
kindergartners make to this question. Alike in 
their writings and through their practice they in- 
sist that every exercise shall have some functional 
value, or in other words, that it shall subserve 
some immediate and conscious purpose. Children 
make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving; pop corn 
for the Christmas tree ; make jelly for a sick play- 
mate. They wash and iron their own dusters, 
towels, and aprons; color the raffia to be used in 
weaving; make toys they themselves want, or 
utensils to be employed in household work. Add- 
ing the time required for constructive exercises to 
the time required for gardening and household in- 
dustries, reserving a half hour for circle games or 
their substitute, and allowing a brief period for 
talk or story, the entire three hours the child 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 261 

spends in the kindergarten are filled to over- 
flowing. 

In order that we may understand how radical 
is the change wrought by the industrial ideal in 
the form of kindergarten activity, it is necessary 
that we should contrast the constructive work it 
calls forth with the Froebelian gift and occupation 
exercises. The character and value of such con- 
structive work is explained by Miss Patty S. Hill 
in the following passage from an article on the Re- 
lations of the Kindergarten and the Elementary 
School as illustrated in their exhibits.^ 

One can but be impressed with the similarity in the 
results exhibited from kindergartens and lower grades. 
We are tempted to criticise this until we read the 
grade child's account of what he has done, and find 
that though the manual products are similar, the in- 
tellectual content in each case is entirely different. 
For example, we see similar cardboard and wooden 
"boxes and trays in exhibits all the way from the kin- 
dergarten to the first grade, their educational value 
in each grade depending upon the degree of work done 
by and for the child, the amount of originality, prep- 
aration of raw material, conscious measurement, etc., 
demanded. For example, here is a written record ac- 
companying a simple cardboard tray with careful 
drawings of the same, made by a ten-year-old fourth- 
grade child. She writes: 

" I have made this cardboard tray in school. The 

» Kindergarten Magazine, October, 1904. (Italics mine.) 



262 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

material was seven inches square when I cut it, which 
made forty-nine square inches. I had to use very 
careful measurements to get it exact, because it is 
very expensive material and we have to try not to 
waste it. When we fold it the bottom is three inches 
square and one inch deep and it contains nine cubic 
inches. We had to score some lines to turn it over to 
make it the shape of a box. Its color is green and it 
looks very pretty. I am going to use it to put my hair 
ribbons in. They will just about fit in the box, if I 
fold them carefully, and it is going to come very 
handy to me." 

If the kindergarten child had made this same ob- 
ject, the conscious measurement would have been 
thought out by the teacher. She would have prepared 
the material and thought out the completed object, 
the kindergarten child prohahly originating the meth- 
od of securing this result with the carefully prepared 
materials placed hefore him. The prepared material 
often hints and suggests processes of construction to 
the kindergarten child." At first glance this seems 
quite limiting to the creativity and originality of the 
kindergarten child, but a deeper study convinces one 
that even the discovery of processes of making objects 
which have been planned by the teacher demands 
quite good ingenuity and originality from a little 
child. 



The gist of this statement is that children may 
be educated by doing the same things all the way 
from the kindergarten to the first grade, the edu- 
cative process consisting in decreasing the amount 
of work done for the pupil and increasing the 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 263 

amount done by him. It seems a rather monoto- 
nous and dreary plan of development. We may 
grant the value of a reasonable amount of con- 
structive work when children are sufficiently ma- 
ture to conceive a product, prepare material and 
make accurate measurements, but it is beyond 
dispute that the traditional exercises of the kin- 
dergarten are far better for the little child than 
constructive work, wherein he confessedly carries 
out a plan not his o^vn with material prepared by 
his teacher. 

^ The method of Froebel follows the order of psy- 
chologic development, and provides for an ascent 
of activity from physical movement, through sym- 
bolic representation and experimental arrange- 
ments with unforeseen results to what may be 
fairly defined as free creation. The little child 
begins by rolling, swinging, bouncing, whirling, 
and spinning his ball, and by swinging and spin- 
ning his sphere, cube, and cylinder. His pleasure 
in the first instance is simply in what he is doing. 
Soon, however, his rolling ball suggests a wheel, his 
swinging ball a flying bird, and cubes and cylin- 
ders begin to be not only themselves but the mani- 
fold objects to which their forms bear crude resem- 
blance. Receiving the third gift the child is con- 
tent for a time to pile its eight cubes in different 
ways or arrange them in rows of different kinds. 
He can scarcely arrange them in any way without 



264 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

their taking forms which will suggest some object 
he has seen. If he piles them one above the other 
a word from the kindergartner opens his eyes to 
see in the unsought result of his activity a tree, 
a tower, a telegraph pole, or a lamp-post. If he 
arranges them side by side, he is confronted with 
a wall, if in two parallel rows, behold the railroad ! 
The change of a single block transforms one of his 
rails into a short train of cars and quickly the 
other rail is added to increase its length. Having, 
as it were, reached these results accidentally the 
child next directly aims to reproduce them, and 
thus through the suggestiveness of his material is 
helped to take the step from experimental arrange- 
ment to conscious production. The fact that while 
intent only on arranging his blocks he produced 
an object leads him to observe this object more 
carefully in order to detect its possible transfor- 
mation into some other object. Through this mu- 
tual reaction of process and product he evolves a 
series of forms. The fourth, fifth, and sixth gifts 
offer him a larger amount and greater variety of 
material. In the use of the fifth and sixth gifts, 
moreover, attention is transferred from the change 
of one object into another to changes within the 
object itself. The child now looks at his dwelling 
house or church to see how it might be improved 
and through a variety of experimental changes 
clarifies his own ideas. Having attained this 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 265 

stage of development he is prepared for the tran- 
sition from play to work. The stages of his ascent 
have been from physical movement, through sym- 
bolic representation, experimental arrangement, 
reproduced result, free creation, serial evolution, 
to the progressive transformation of a single ob- 
ject so that it may more adequately correspond 
with a self -defining ideal. To expect of little chil- 
dren that they should clearly image an object and 
go to work and make that and nothing else is to 
expect an impossibility. Clear images are created 
through the interaction of process and product. 

Omitting the first two stages which belong to 
the period of infancy the method of development 
followed with the kindergarten gifts is repeated 
in the use of the occupations. In weaving, for 
example, the child begins with simple combina- 
tions of number; discovers patterns as the result 
of this combination and thereafter through the 
reciprocal influence of pattern and numerical ar- 
rangement creates interesting and beautiful de- 
signs. In folding the beginning is made by creas- 
ing and bending paper in different ways; these 
creases and bends suggest simple objects and 
finally the child folds with intention to make ob- 
jects. Further illustration is superfluous, and it 
is hoped that the reader will have observed how 
exactly FroebePs genetic developing method cor- 
responds with the spontaneous movement of the 



266 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

child's mind as shown in the play of Professor 
Baldwin's little girl with her blocks. The many, 
and I hasten to add, the just criticisms made 
against the practice of Froebelian kindergartners 
arose from the fact that ascent in evolutionary 
processes was too swift, and that this error some- 
times led to the imposition of fixed series in lieu 
of the free production by children of different 
series. For many years this error has been rec- 
ognized, confessed, and lamented. It is, however, 
one thing to renounce an error in practice and 
quite another thing to throw away a true prin- 
ciple because it has been mistakenly applied. 

Thus far we have considered chiefly that type 
of exercise known in the kindergarten as ^' making 
forms of life.'' Brief attention must now be given 
to forms of beauty. In the Froebelian kinder- 
garten these forms are the outcome of an effort to 
make a concrete genetic development of the prin- 
ciples of design. They begin with arrangements 
in which simple elements are repeated and ad- 
vance to the evolution of symmetric figures 
through application of the principle of contrast. 
They presuppose the theory explained in the sec- 
ond chapter of this book, that " art is play under 
the influence of the principle of order." ^ They 

1 The Fine Arts, G. Baldwin Brown, p. 16. A more adequate 
statement by the same author is as follows: 

"On every grade of his being man possesses an ideal, self- 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 267 

further assume that this principle of order is na- 
tive to the human mind and expresses its constitu- 
tion and that for this reason both primitive men 
and little children seek spontaneously to make pat- 
terns by the rhythmic repetition of simple ele- 
ments and to create symmetric figures. 

It may be cheerfully conceded that in order to 
realize the ideal toward which forms of beauty 
aim Froebelian kindergartners need more knowl- 
edge and appreciation of art than they possess. 
Many of them are conscious of defect and are 
striving to overcome it. But their own insuffi- 
ciency does not invalidate their argument and 
the points for which they contend are that there 
should be a genetic development of the principles 
of design ; that the traditional material of the kin- 
dergarten is the best thus far offered for this pur- 
pose ; and that by means of that peculiar Froebe- 
lian device the mediation of opposites, little 
children are enabled to satisfy far more com- 
pletely than is possible to their unaided might the 
deep human impulses of creation and transfor- 
mation. 

determined life existing side by side with, but apart from this 
life as conditioned by material needs. This life expresses 
itself in and is nourished by various forms of free and spontane- 
ous expression and action, which on the lower grades of being 
may be termed simple play but on the higher grades take the 
shape of that rational and significant play resulting in art." 
p. 9. 



268 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

It would be going too far to say that industrial 
kindergartners entirely repudiate the idea of a 
genetic development of design. It is, however, 
undeniable that their insistence upon functional 
values makes such a development impossible. If 
children must always make designs as ornaments 
for some previously constructed useful object, 
there will be scant time for the evolution of rhyth- 
mic patterns or symmetric figures. As a matter 
of fact the industrial ideal practically eliminates 
forms of beauty and as the outcome of such elimi- 
nation banishes from the kindergarten the surface 
and linear gifts; substitutes plain sewing and 
weaving for the pattern creating exercises of Froe- 
bel; minimizes the production of symmetric fig- 
ures in paper folding and cutting, and places the 
accent of the former occupation upon constructing 
useful objects and the accent of the latter upon 
forms of life sometimes cut freely and sometimes 
cut by following outlines drawn by the kinder- 
gartner. 

The contrasting methods advocated by Indus- 
trial and Frobelian kindergartners indicate that 
one practical issue between them is to be found in 
the relative stress which they respectively place 
upon utilitarian and aesthetic ideals. Since the 
majority of men must depend upon manual skill 
for a livelihood one duty of education is to pre- 
pare them for the practical arts by early training 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 269 

of the important muscles of the body and by the 
cultivation of skill of hand and accuracy of eye. 
Conversely emphasis upon the craftsman at the ex- 
pense of the man is destructive of the goal of edu- 
cation, which is the emancipation of the individ- 
ual from the tyranny of his natural and petty 
self through the revelation of his ideal selfhood. 
For this reason Froebelian kindergartners deplore 
the tendency to make industrial aims paramount 
in education and believe that the accent of the 
kindergarten should be placed upon the beautiful 
rather than the useful, upon the embryo artist 
rather than the embryo artisan. For American 
children heightened accent upon the fine arts is 
especially important. Critics of America are con- 
stantly pointing out the fact ^' that her unparal- 
leled achievement in the practical arts has not 
been accompanied by any serious contribution to 
literature and art." She produces great inventors 
and great industrial kings, but she does not pro- 
duce great poets, great sculptors, great painters, 
great scientists, or great philosophers. Industrial 
ideals dominate her mind and compel her ener- 
gies, and she seems so increasingly given over to 
the pursuit of wealth and power that one thought- 
ful observer hesitates not to affirm that " her soul 
is tending to atrophy and decay and that she is 
threatened with the danger of producing men who 
are not spirits but only intelligent machines.'^ 



270 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

Is it not therefore both wrong and dangerous to 
increase the sway of utilitarian motives by making 
immediate utility our standard of value in any 
grade of education ? 

Deeper than the issue between utilitarian and 
Eesthetic ideals is the psychologic issue with regard 
to the order of mental development. It is claimed 
that historically industry is the fountain source of 
art. It is also urged that children must have a mo- 
tive for activity, and that the image of a product 
is necessary to stimulate interest in a creative 
process. In direct contradiction of the former 
claims Froebelian kindergartners believe that his- 
torically art preceded production for use and play 
preceded art; that in the development of the in- 
dividual this order is repeated and that, in virtue 
of the revelations of phylogeny and ontogeny, edu- 
cation should begin with self-expressive activity 
and advance to self-expression controlled by the 
principle of order. In opposition to the latter 
claims they insist that children delight in doing 
for the sake of doing and need no motive for activ- 
ity save activity itself. The boy who spins tops 
and bounces balls has no thought of ulterior con- 
sequences from his play. The imitation of adult 
deeds is made by children with no conscious pur- 
pose. Building, drawing, painting, modeling may 
be begun with some thought of their result but 
alike with the artist and the child there is a con- 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 271 

stant tendency to forget the outcome of creative 
action in the joy of creating. To return once more 
to the procreant thought of this chapter and to 
the final issue between Industrial and Froebelian 
kindergartners whenever it is claimed that activity 
needs an extraneous motive, and when interest in 
a product is substituted for delight in a process 
the form of play yields to the form of work. To 
give work ^' the right of way " in early childhood 
is either to ignore or deny the primary revelation 
of genetic psychology. 

The reaction of the industrial ideal upon kin- 
dergarten games is scarcely less marked than its 
reaction upon the gifts and occupations. The 
most noticeable tendencies of this reaction are to 
break up the circle into small groups ; to encourage 
the children in these groups to make their own 
dramatizations; to discourage the representation 
of any but human activities and among human 
activities to give preference to those that are in- 
dustrial in type. In brief, just as the work sub- 
stituted for gift and occupation exercises circles 
around human industries so the interest of dra- 
matic games is to center in portraying these in- 
dustries. 

Since what the child imitates he becomes and 
what he becomes he sees in the world around him, 
it is evident that by unduly restricting the range 



272 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

of his imitations we conspire to create in him a 
narrow and rigid individuality and a limited out- 
look. The Froebelian kindergarten portrays the 
activities of the family and civil society, but it 
also strives to waken the love of country, to 
quicken some prescient feeling of the meaning of 
religion and to suggest those wonderful analogies 
through which nature becomes the poetic inter- 
preter of human experience. Through these 
varied representations it aids children to create a 
large, generous, and plastic selfhood and thereby 
capacitates them for a sympathetic appreciation 
of the manifold aspects of life. " Above all 
things," says that penetrating student of child life, 
Professor Baldwin, '' Above all things, fathers, 
mothers, teachers, elders, give the children room. 
They need all they can get and their personalities 
will grow to fill it. . . . Fill their lives with va- 
riety, variety is the soul of originality and its only 
source of -supply." ^ 

The two most characteristic demands of the in- 
dustrial programme are that children shall repeat 
primitive industries and shall be told stories about 
the people who originally created these industries. 
We have considered the former demand and dis- 
covered that by inducing a secession from play to 
work it not only revolutionizes the kindergarten 
but puts it out of existence. We must now direct 
1 Mental Development, James Mark Baldwin, pp. 359, 360. 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 273 

our attention to the second demand, and I shall 
attempt to show that it leads to the substitution of 
manufactured stories prosaic in their content and 
hortatory in their tone for the fairy tales and 
myths which are the priceless legacy of the child- 
hood of the race to the children of all ages. 

" The function of the story," says Miss Dopp, 
" is to supply the child with racial experiences 
that will enrich his own more narrow personal ex- 
perience." Since such stories do not exist they 
must be written. Those which follow are quoted 
from Miss Dopp's book, The Tree-dwellers.^ 



A STORY OF LONG AGO 

This is a story of long ago. 

It will tell you of the first people we know anything 
about. 

It will tell you how they lived before they had fire. 

It will tell you how they worked before they had 
tools. 

Many wild beasts lived then. 

They were fierce and strong. 

All the people feared them. 

The cave-bear could strike with his big paws. 

The tiger could tear with his sharp teeth. 

The rhinoceros could trample one under his feet. 

Each animal knew how to do one thing well. 

^ These stories are written for children of six and a half or 
seven years of age. 
19 



274 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

But the people could do a great many things. 

They could remember, too, what had happened be- 
fore. 

They learned to profit by their mistakes. 

You will learn how they became brave and strong. 

You will learn how they used their bodies and minds. 

They began the work we are doing to-day. 

They took the first steps. 

People who lived after them were able to do a little 
more. 

The next people could do still more. 

Many people have lived and worked since then. 

The work they have done helps us to-day. 

We have something to do, too. 

We can do our part better if we know what others 
have done. 

We can do it better if we learn to use our hands. 

We can do it better if we learn to use our minds. 

That is why we have this little hook. 

II 

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT 

What do you need in order to live? 

What do you think that the tree-dwellers needed? 

SHARPTOOTH 

Sharptooth was a tree-dweller. 

She lived a long, long time ago. 

She did not have any home. 

Nobody had a home then. 

People wandered from place to place. 

They had no shelter except the trees. 

Each night Sharptooth slept in the branches. 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 275 

Each day she hunted for something to eat. 

Sometimes she was very hungry. 

She had hard work to find enough food. 

She could not go to a store to buy it. 

There were no stores then. 

She could not buy food of a farmer. 

There were no farmers then. 

All the plants were growing wild. 

All the animals were wild, too. 

Sharptooth was afraid of them. 

That is why she climbed the trees. 

ALONE ON THE WOODED HILLS 

Although Bodo ^ was glad to take care of himself, 
he often wished that his mother were near. 

Sometimes he called to her. 

When she heard his call she would answer him. 

Then he would swing on the branches until he found 
her. 

But sometimes she was too far away to hear. 

Then he listened in vain for her answering call. 

Sometimes it was hard work to keep back the tears. 

Once he sobbed so loud that a sleepy bear heard 
him. 

The bear started up and began to growl. 

Bodo hid in the branches of a tall tree. 

He stayed there until the bear went away. 

Then he was very hungry. 

As he started out to find something to eat, he heard 
a rustling among the branches. 

He listened. 

Bodo hoped that his mother was coming. 

» Bodo is Sharptooth's little son. 



276 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

But it was only a boy who was hunting birds* eggs. 

Bodo watched him climb among the branches. 

He watched him suck the eggs that he found. 

How he wished that he might find some eggs ! 

He began to look for some. 

In a moment he saw a bird's nest above him. 

He climbed up the branch and peeped into the nest. 

There were three beautiful eggs. 

His eyes danced with joy. 

He sucked the eggs. 

Then he smacked his lips and hunted for more. 

In these stories everything is explained to the 
child. He is even told why they were written. 
The tacit assumption is that education must appeal 
primarily and persistently to the prosaic under- 
standing. Finally, an explicit statement of this as- 
sumption is made in the author's comments upon 
the story of ''Bodo Alone on the Wooded Hills.'' 

The portrayal of the situation which caused our 
early forefathers to rob birds' nests and kill young 
animals will no doubt shock the sentimentalist who 
orders eggs or veal as a matter of course. There 
might be good ground for his feeling were there not 
present in the child the instinct to do similar deeds 
even though living under social conditions that do 
not justify such acts. Anyone who will take the 
trouble to recall his own childhood, or to make the 
acquaintance of children of six and a half or seven 
years, will realize that such instincts are present, and 
that they must find expression in one form or another. 
Is it wise to ignore the facts of the case and allow 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 277 

the child to form the habit of gratifying his blind 
instincts, or shall we recognize the situation and meet 
it with all the wisdom at our command ? Is it not the 
better plan to tell the child frankly of the way in 
which people lived at the time when they did what 
he would like to do now, and lead him to discover the 
changes that have taken place that lead us to disap- 
prove of actions which, under different conditions, 
were considered good?^ 

It is a bad fault of these stories that they ex- 
plain everything they tell. It is a worse fault that 
they leave so much untold. Sharptooth had many 
experiences which her biographer forgets. There 
were nights when perched in the trees she looked 
with wonder at the sky and stars. There were 
days when something in her stirred uneasily after 
she had given Bodo an angry whack. One sum- 
mer morning while washing him in the river she 
started at his image in the water and was shaken 
by a strange surmise that the image near his might 
be her own. Something more than a reverberation 
thrilled her when from the distance there came to 
her the echo of her own voice. There were hours 
of danger, nights of lonely suffering, seasons of 
death when the mystery which encompasses all 
life folded her in its embrace and quickened her 
soul with prescient forebodings. Being human she 
had the ^' blank misgivings of a creature moving 

» The Tree-dwellers, p. 133. (Italics mine.) 



278 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

about in words not realized." After a while the 
faint stirrings of her spirit grew stronger in her 
descendants and began to seek expression in story. 
Men dreamed of all-conquering heroes and world- 
exploring wanderers; of ascents into the sky and 
descents into depths of the earth ; of a golden age 
when secure from danger and blessed with plenty 
innocent humanity lived in peace and joy. We 
dream to-day of our own planet subdued, trans- 
formed, and idealized; of future converse with 
intelligent spirits in other worlds ; of " a cosmic 
community living in glad obedience to a perfect 
moral law." These dreams are our gTcatest re- 
alities because they are the sacred promises of a 
God whose earthly sanctuary is the human soul. 
The little child dreams as we do because he, too, 
is an original fountain of self-creating energy, and 
from the beginning of life is haunted by presenti- 
ments of his nature and destiny. His feeble 
power of divination needs nurture from the ora- 
cles of human imagination. Without fairy tales, 
myths, legends, fables, poetry, the eyes of the hu- 
man spirit will grow blind. When this calamity 
happens to the children and youth of a nation the 
fate of that nation is sealed. ^' Where there is no 
vision the people perisheth." 

The purpose of this chapter is accomplished if 
the reader has been helped to realize afresh " the 



THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 279 

deep meaning Avhich lies hid in childish play." 
Through play we make ourselves. In work we use 
ourselves. The inspirer of play is poetic imagina- 
tion; the overseer of work is the prosaic under- 
standing. Bold, free, adventurous, romantic — 
imagination scales the heights and descends into 
the depths of our being. Cautious, deliberate, pa- 
tient — understanding sets its limited and imme- 
diate end, and to this end adapts its means. 
Through the power of imagination we roam 
through space and time, assume all characters, 
enter into all lives ; share all passions, sympathize 
with all great ideals and with wondering minds 
approach the portals of all mysteries. Through 
understanding we decide hoAv we may most wisely 
meet the practical emergencies and compulsory 
duties of life and with firm resolve concentrate 
energy to the accomplishment of specific purposes. 
Without the liberating and expanding activity to 
which imagination invites us, our thoughts would 
have no range, our hearts no sj^mpathy, and our 
wills no final end. Without the efficiency with 
which understanding endows us and the consecra- 
tion for which work empowers us our far-faring 
thoughts would lose themselves in the void; re- 
sponsive sympathies would fail to provoke unsel- 
fish deeds, and the final aims of human existence 
would beckon in vain to our languid wills. 

1^0 thinker who understands the complemen- 



280 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

tary roles of play and work in the drama of hu- 
man life will deny the value of either form of ac- 
tivity. But no student of genetic psychology will 
fail to recognize the priority of play over work in 
the order of development. Of all children the 
most unchildlike is the child who does everything 
for a purpose and to whom everything is ex- 
plained. For such a child has ceased to wonder 
and has forgotten how to play. 



CHAPTEE X 

THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 

The industrial programme has arisen in the 
kindergarten through the reaction upon that insti- 
tution of a movement in general education whose 
avowed aim is the socialization of the school. It 
would be unjust to the representatives of this 
movement to hold them responsible either for the 
interpretations which kindergartners have made 
of their ideas of for the manner in which they 
have embodied such interpretations.^ On the 
other hand, the attempted revolution of kindergar- 
ten practice described in the foregoing chapter 
cannot be understood until it is connected with 

' In this connection I desire to say that I ventured to quote 
from Miss Dopp in the preceding chapter because so far as I 
am aware she is the only representative of the industrial ideal 
who has attempted to apply that ideal in detail to the kinder- 
garten. Her book has undoubtedly had much influence in 
shaping the practice of industrial kindergartners. On the 
other hand the industrial ideal, as carried out in many kinder- 
gartens, betrays the conspiring influence of the Pestalozzi- 
Froebel House of Berlin. So far as I am able to judge this 
latter influence was paramount in the programme cited in 
Chapter IX. 

281 



282 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the greater revolution of which it is a phase. In 
this chapter, therefore, I shall endeavor to present 
the ideal of school socialization so far as possible 
in the words of its most eminent representative, 
and in the following chapter shall discuss its 
merits. 

The purpose of the larger educational move- 
ment to which I have referred is to so reorganize 
the school that " its standards of value may be 
determined by functional relation to social life." 
The value of each particular study and the motives 
in connection with which each study shall be pre- 
sented are to be measured by the criterion of social 
utility. The school is or should be a typical com- 
munity. Its exercises must be planned to meet 
community needs. This ideal demands that in 
method accent shall be placed upon constructive 
activities. It also demands that ethical character 
shall be developed through the practical challenge 
of the community life. 

Writing in support of this ideal of education 
Dr. Dewey makes use of the following very per- 
tinent illustration: 

I am told that there is a swimming school in the 
city of Chicago where youth are taught to swim with- 
out going into the water, being repeatedly drilled in 
the various movements which are necessary for swim- 
ming. When one of the young men so trained was 
asked what he did when he got into the water he 



THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 283 

laconically replied, " sunk." The story happens to 
be true; if it were not it would seem to be a fable 
made expressly for the purpose of typifying the pre- 
vailing status of the school as judged from the stand- 
point of its ethical relation to society. The school 
cannot be a preparation for social life, excepting as it 
reproduces within itself the typical conditions of so- 
cial life. The school at present is engaged largely 
upon the futile task of Sisyphus. It is endeavoring 
to form practically an intellectual habit in children 
for use in a social life which is, it would almost seem, 
carefully and purposely kept away from any vital con- 
tact with the child who is thus undergoing training. 
The only way to prepare for social life is to engage in 
social life. To form habits of social usefulness and 
serviceableness apart from any direct social need and 
motive, and apart from any existing social situation 
is, to the letter, teaching the child to swim by going 
through motions outside of the water. The most in- 
dispensable conditions are left out of account, and the 
results are correspondingly futile.^ 

The italicized sentence in this statement throws 
into clear relief the aim and method of the last 
attempted reform in education. The school is to 
prepare for social life. The only way to prepare 
for social life is to engage in social life. In an- 
other paragraph of the same article we are told 
that " apart from participation in social life the 
school has no end or aim." The hope by which 

' Ethical Principles Underlying Education, John Dewey, 
pp. 13, 14. (Italics mine.) 



284 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the socialized school lives is the regeneration of 
our social order. '^ When the school introduces 
and trains each child of society into membership 
within such a little community, saturating him 
with the spirit of service, and providing him with 
the instruments of effective self-direction, we shall 
have the deepest and best guarantee of a larger 
society which is worthy, lovely, and harmonious."^ 
If the aim of education be to prepare for social 
life and if this aim can be realized only by en- 
gaging in social life, it follows that the school must 
be transformed into an " embryonic yet typical 
community." It is matter of familiar knowledge 
that in the practical attempts to realize this ideal 
various forms of active occupation have been made 
the " articulating centers " of school life.^ The 
phrase ^^ articulating centers " is an important 
one, for it suggests a connection between the 
method of the socialized school and the core of in- 
terest characteristic of the concentric programme. 
The fact that the new cores or articulating centers 
are to be active occupations points to an influence 
from the child-study movement whose most meri- 
torious achievement has been the transfer of in- 
terest from the child conceived primarily as a 
percipient and assimilative being to the child con- 
ceived primarily as a self-expressing being. The 

i School and Society, John Dewey, p. 44. 
' Ibid., John Dewey, p. 28. 



THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 285 

further course of our discussion will show that in 
the concentration of school exercises around indus- 
trial occupations a noteworthy attempt has been 
made to overcome the anarchy of unguided self- 
expression by relating the spontaneous activities 
of childhood to the values of life. Readers of this 
book will recognize in such an effort a rediscovery 
of the method of Froebel. They will also perceive 
that radical differences in the application of the 
method imply different appreciations of the sev- 
eral great human values and different conceptions 
of the child. In the following chapters of this 
book I shall endeavor to unearth the root of these 
differences. 

Like the original authors of the concentric 
method the educators who seek to make industrial 
occupations the " articulating centers " of school 
life justify their selection of cores by an appeal 
to the theory of historic recapitulation. In the 
application of this theory by the two schools of 
educators however, there is a difference deeper 
than their agreement. It will be remembered that 
the " Gesinnungs-Stoff " of the concentric pro- 
gramme was selected from culture products be- 
longing to successive periods of race development 
which it was claimed repeat themselves in the de- 
velopment of each individual. A change so radi- 
cal that it can only be described as a revolution, 
was made when the industries characteristic of 



286 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

successive periods of history were substituted for 
culture products. The reasons which it is claimed 
demand such a substitution are clearly presented 
by Dr. Dewey in his interpretation of the Culture- 
Epoch Theory. Quoting the statement of Pro- 
fessor Felmly that '^ The appropriate food for each 
of our spontaneous interests is the mass of ideas 
that engaged the ancestors to whom the instinctive 
interest is due/' he suggests that " the term activi- 
ties be substituted for the term ideas, or better yet, 
that the two terms be conjoined." ^ Commenting 
upon the amended statement he writes as follows : 

Whatever words he used, the point is that the in- 
terest and instinct correspond not primarily to the 
products of a given age, but to the psychical condi- 
tions which originated those products; these condi- 
tions secured for the child then he is prepared to deal 
educatively with the products. When the child is in 
the " agricultural " stage, it is sheer assumption to 
suppose that his chief interest is in the literary or 
institutional products of that epoch; it is also sheer 
assumption to suppose that this agricultural interest 
is adequately met on the educational side by allowing 
it to feed at first on the cultural products of this 
epoch. It is an interest which demands primarily its 
own expression, and not simply an acquaintance sec- 
ond handed with what that interest effected at some 
remote period. 

1 Interpretation of the Culture-Epoch Theory, John Dewey, 
Second Herbart Year Book, p. 92. 



THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 287 

The agricultural instinct requires, according to 
the true analogy, to be fed in just the same way in 
the child in which it was fed in the race — by contact 
with the earth and seed and air and sun and all the 
mighty flux and ebb of life in nature. It requires 
to be fed by knowledge of how agriculture is now 
carried on, what its products are, how these reach the 
market, etc. Then the child may be brought into con- 
tact with the historical cultural products, and will 
have some " apperceptive organs " for them, and will 
be able to use them vitally. I do not say that to give 
him contact with these products before his interests 
have found some expression of their own is to give 
him a stone instead of bread, but it is not too much 
to say that it is giving him relatively a toy instead of 
a reality.^ 

The ideas which have created the last revolu- 
tion in education should now be clear. The school 
is to be transformed into a typical community 
life. The " articulating centers of this life " shall 
be industrial occupations. In connection with 
these occupations the historic development of man 
is to be recapitulated. Our next task is to apply 
this conception of the school to the methods and 
subject matter of education, for the claim is made 
that by its application to method we solve the ques- 
tion of school discipline ; by its application to the 
subject matter of instruction we estimate the rela- 

» Interpretation of the Culture-Epoch Theory, Second 
Herbart Year Book, pp. 92, 93. 



288 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

tive values of the several studies of the school cur- 
riculum. 

The socialized school seeks to solve the problem 
of discipline by offering to children opportunity 
for participation in common productive activities. 
Dr. Dewey writes: 

Order is simply a thing which is relative to an 
end. If you have the end in view of forty or fifty 
children learning certain set lessons, your discipline 
must be devoted to securing that result. But if the 
end in view is the development of a spirit of social 
cooperation and community life, discipline must grow 
out of and be relative to this. There is little order 
of one sort where things are in process of construc- 
tion ; there is a certain disorder in any busy workshop, 
there is not silence, persons are not engaged in main- 
taining certain fixed physical postures, their arms are 
not folded, they are not holding their books so and 
so. They are doing a variety of things, and there is 
the confusion, the bustle that results from activity. 
But out of occupation, out of doing things that are 
to produce results, and out of doing these in a social 
and cooperative way, there is born a discipline of its 
own kind and type. Our whole conception of school 
discipline changes when we get this point of view. In 
critical moments we all realize that the only disci- 
pline that stands by us, the only training that becomes 
intuition, is that got through life itself. That we 
learn from experience and from books or the sayings 
of others only as they are related to experience are not 
mere phrases. But the school has been so set apart, 
so isolated from the ordinary conditions and motives 



THE SOCIALIZATION OP THE SCHOOL 289 

of life, that the place where children are sent for dis- 
cipline is the one place where it is most difficult to 
get experience — the mother of all discipline worth the 
name. It is only where a narrow and fixed image of 
traditional school discipline dominates that one is in 
any danger of overlooking that deeper and infinitely 
wider discipline that comes from having a part to do 
in constructive work, in contributing to a result 
which, social in spirit, is none the less obvious and 
tangible in form, and hence in a form with reference 
to which responsibility may be exacted and judgment 
passed. 

The great thing to keep in mind then regarding 
the introduction into the school of various forms of 
active occupation is that through them the entire 
spirit of the school is renewed. It has a chance to 
affiliate itself with life; to become the child's habitat; 
where he learns through directed living, instead of 
being only a place to learn lessons having an abstract 
and remote reference to some possible living to be 
done in the future. It gets the chance to be a minia- 
ture community, an embryonic society. This is the 
fundamental fact.^ 

A wisely directed participation in industrial 
occupations not only solves the problem of school 
discipline but makes possible the unification of 
all school studies. Upon this subject Dr. Dewey 
writes as follows: 

The unity of all the sciences is found in geography. 
The significance of geography is that it presents the 

1 School and Society, pp. 30-32. 
20 



290 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

earth as the enduring home of the occupations of man. 
The world without its relationship to human activity 
is less than a world. Human industry and achieve- 
ment, apart from their roots in the earth, are not even 
a sentiment, hardly a name. The earth is the final 
source of all man's food. It is his continual shelter 
and protection, the raw material of all his activities, 
and the home to whose humanizing and idealizing all 
his achievement returns. It is the great field, the 
great mine, the great source of the energies of heat, 
light, and electricity; the great scene of ocean, stream, 
mountain, and plain, of which all our agriculture and 
mining and lumbering, all our manufacturing and 
distributing agencies, are but the partial elements and 
factors. It is through occupations determined hy this 
environment that manlcind has made its historical and 
political progress. It is through these occupations 
that the intellectual and emotional interpretation of 
nature has heen developed. It is through what we 
do in and with the world that we read its meaning 
and measure its value. 

In educational terms, this means that these occu- 
pations in the school shall not be mere practical de- 
vices or modes of routine employment, the gaining of 
better technical skill as cooks, seamstresses, or car- 
penters, but active centers of scientific insight into 
natural materials and processes, points of departure 
whence children shall he led out into a realization of 
the historic development of man^ 

In illustration of the method proposed Dr. 
Dewey tells how the occupations of sewing and 

1 School and Society, pp. 32, 33. (Italics mine.) 



THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 291 

weaving may actually be made points of departure 
for the studies of history and science : 

The children are first given the raw material, the 
flax, the cotton plant, the wool as it conies from the 
back of the sheep (if we could take them to the place 
where sheep are sheared so much the better). Then 
a study is made of these materials from the standpoint 
of their adaptation to the uses to which they may be 
put. For instance, a comparison of the cotton fiber 
with wool fiber is made. I did not know until the 
children told me that the reason for the late develop- 
ment of the cotton industry as compared with the 
woolen is that the cotton fiber is so very difficult to 
free by hand from the seeds. The children in one 
group worked thirty minutes freeing cotton fibers from 
the boll and seeds, and succeeded in getting out less 
than one ounce. They could easily believe that one 
person could only gin one pound a day by hand, and 
could understand why their ancestors wore woolen in- 
stead of cotton clothing. Among other things dis- 
covered as affecting their relative utilities, was the 
shortness of the cotton fiber as compared with that of 
wool, the former being one tenth of an inch in length, 
while that of the latter is an inch in length; also that 
the fibers of cotton are smooth and do not cling to- 
gether, while the wool has a certain roughness which 
makes the fibers stick, thus assisting the spinning. 
The children worked this out for themselves with the 
actual material, aided by questions and suggestions 
from the teacher. 

They then followed the processes necessary for 
working the fibers up into cloth. They reinvented 
the first frame for carding the wool — a couple of 



292 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

boards with sharp pins in them for scratching it out. 
They redevised the simplest process for spinning the 
wool — a pierced stone or some other weight through 
which the wool is passed, and which as it is twirled 
draws out the fiber; next the top, which was spun on 
the floor, while the children kept the wool in their 
hands until it was gradually drawn out and wound 
upon it. Then the children are introduced to the in- 
vention next in historic order, working it out experi- 
mentally, thus seeing its necessity and tracing its ef- 
fects, not only upon that particular industry, but upon 
modes of social life — in this way passing in review 
the entire process up to the present complete loom 
and all that goes with the application of science in the 
use of our present available powers. I need not speak 
of the science involved in this — the study of the fibers ; 
of geographical features; the conditions under which 
raw materials are grown, the great centers of manu- 
facture and distribution; the physics involved in the 
machinery of production; nor, again, of the historical 
side — the influence which these inventions have had 
upon humanity. You can concentrate the history of 
all manhind into the evolution of the flax, cotton, 
and wool fibers into clothing.^ 



As industrial occupations supply concentration 
centers for history and science, so taken in connec- 
tion with these studies they are indispensable pre- 
requisites to the proper appreciation of literature. 
This relationship is clearly brought out in Dr. 



School and Society, pp. 34-36. (Italics mine.) 



J 



THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 293 

Dewey's discussion of myths. " It seems to be 
assumed/' he writes '' that the myth i« a primitive 
simple product which the mind sheds by a sort of 
direct radiation, or to mix the metaphor, by spon- 
taneous combustion termed fancy. And that, 
therefore, there is some special, almost pre- 
ordained fitness in it for the child. But naivete 
belongs rather to this view of the myth than to 
the myth itself. The myth is a complete social 
product, reflecting in itself the intellectual, the 
economic and the political condition of a certain 
people." ... It is " of permanent value as a 
story in just the degree to which the child has been 
led for himself first to appreciate the natural facts 
and the social conditions which are reflected in it. 
If he has been led in his nature study to realize 
the part played by the sun in the economy of life, 
if he has been led to appreciate the historic con- 
dition of people with a precarious relationship to 
fire, myths of the sun and fire may play a serious 
and worthy part. Let us treat the intellectual re- 
sources, capacities, and needs of our children with 
the full dignity and respect they deserve and not 
sentimentalize nor symbolize the realities of life 
nor present them in the shape of mental toys." * 

Besides supplying concentration cores for his- 
tory, science, and literature industrial activities 

1 Interpretation of the Culture-Epoch Theory, Second Year 
Book of the National Herbart Society, p. 95. 



294 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

are to be made the ^' allies of art." The following 
passage from School and Society shows how this 
alliance is effected: 

The expressive impulse of the children, the art in- 
stinct, grows out of the communicating and construc- 
tive instincts. It is their refinement and full mani- 
festation. Make the construction adequate, make it 
full, free, and flexible, give it a social motive, some- 
thing to tell, and you have a work of art. Take one 
illustration of this in connection with the textile 
work — sewing and weaving. The children made a 
primitive loom in the shop; here the constructive in- 
stinct was appealed to. Then they wished to do some- 
thing with this loom, to make something. It was the 
type of the Indian loom, and they were shown blankets 
woven by the Indians. Each child made a design 
kindred in idea to those of the Navajo blankets, and 
the one which seemed best adapted to the work in hand 
was selected. The technical resources were limited, 
but the coloring and form were worked out by the 
children.^ 

Thus far we have considered the plan of mak- 
ing industrial activities the " articulating centers 
of school life " only from the point of view of the 
final purpose of education. We must now con- 
sider it from the point of view of an effort to me- 
diate between the native interests of childhood and 
the studies of the school. It is claimed that the 
" fourfold interests of the child — the interest in 

» School and Society, p. 60. 



THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 295 

conversation or communication, in inquiry or find- 
ing out about things ; in making things or con- 
struction and in artistic expression " ^ are all met 
by the plan proposed, and that it offers the best 
connection between his immediate experience and 
the experience of the race. For his forcible state- 
ments of the truths that education must find its 
point of departure ix^ the native manifestations of 
childhood and its goal in the assimilation of race 
experience. Dr. Dewey deserves the thanks of all 
those who are wrestling either theoretically or 
practically with the problems of elementary edu- 
cation. Kindergartners owe him a special debt of 
gratitude for his effectual aid in destroying the 
prestige of the new return to nature and under- 
mining faith in its golden rule " Give nature her 
fling." The following extracts from the Child 
and the Curriculum will perhaps sufficiently indi- 
cate his point of view : 

Abandon the notion of subject matter as some- 
thing fixed and ready-made in itself, outside the 
child's experience; cease thinking of the child's ex- 
perience as also something hard and fast; see it as 
something fluent, embryonic, vital; and we realize 
that the child and the curriculum are simply two 
limits which define a single process. Just as two 
points define a straight line, so the present stand- 
point of the child and the facts and truths of studies 

1 School and Society, p. 61. 



296 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

define instruction. It is continuous reconstruction, 
moving from the child's present experience out into 
that represented by the organized bodies of truth that 
we call studies. 

On the face of it, the various studies, arithmetic, 
geography, language, botany, etc., are themselves ex- 
perience — they are that of the race. They embody the 
cumulative outcome of the efforts, the strivings, and 
successes of the human race generation after genera- 
tion. They represent this, not as a mere accumula- 
tion, not as a miscellaneous heap of separate bits of 
experience, but in some organized and systematized 
way — that is, as reflectively formulated. 

Hence, the facts and truths that enter into the 
child's present experience, and those contained in the 
subject matter of studies, are the initial and final 
terms of one reality. To oppose one to the other is to 
oppose the infancy and maturity of the same growing 
life; it is to set the moving tendency and the final 
result of the same process over against each other; it 
is to hold that the nature and the destiny of the child 
war with each other. 

If such be the case, the problem of the relation of 
the child and the curriculum presents itself in this 
guise : Of what use, educationally speaking, is it to be 
able to see the end in the beginning? How does it 
assist us in dealing with the early stages of growth 
to be able to anticipate its later phases ? The studies, 
as we have agreed, represent the possibilities of de- 
velopment inherent in the child's immediate crude ex- 
perience. But after all they are not parts of that 
present and immediate life. Why, then or how, make 
account of them? 

Asking such a question suggests its own answer. 



THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 297 

To see the outcome is to know in what direction the 
present experience is moving, provided it move nor- 
mally and soundly. The far-away point, which is of 
no significance to us simply as far away becomes of 
huge importance the moment we take it as defining a 
present direction of movement. Taken in this way 
it is no remote and distant result to be achieved but 
a guiding method in dealing with the present. The 
systematized and defined experience of the adult 
mind, in other words, is of value to us in interpreting 
the child's life as it immediately shows itself, and in 
passing on to guidance or direction.^ 

The convictions out of which has grown the 
effort to socialize the school may be summarized 
as follows : 

I 
The purpose of the school is to prepare for 
social life. 

II 
Such preparation can only be made by engaging 
in social life. 

Ill 

The school must therefore be transformed into 
a miniature community. 

IV 

The articulating centers of life in this miniature 
community shall be industrial occupations. 

1 The Child and the Curriculum, pp. 16-18. 



298 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 



The organization of community life around in- 
dustrial occupations calls forth methods whose 
" emphasis is upon construction and giving out 
rather than upon absorption and mere learning." ^ 
Through this change of emphasis selfishness is at- 
tacked and the spirit of social service developed. 

VI 

In so far as the spirit of social service is devel- 
oped and the habit of cooperation formed the 
problem of school discipline is solved. 

VII 

Industrial occupations may be so taught that 
they not only foster the spirit of social service but 
become the organizing centers of science, history, 
literature, and art. Hence, in addition to solving 
the problem of school discipline they unify all 
branches of school study. 

VIII 

The point of departure for education must be 
sought in the native interests of childhood. The 
goal of education is the assimilation of race expe- 



Ethical Principles Underlying Education, p. 15. 



THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 299 

child's present experience and those contained in 
the subject matter of studies '' can be connected 
because " they are the initial and final terms of 
one reality." The concentration of school life 
around industrial occupations achieves this con- 
nection because while meeting the child on his own 
plane and responding to the impulses of " saying, 
making, finding out, and creating " it moves for- 
ward from these impulses toward appreciation of 
the great values of life embodied in the studies of 
the school. 



CHAPTEK XI 

THE LIVING ISSUE 

Having listened to Faust's confession of his 
pantheistic creed Goethe's Gretchen speaks from 
the depths of her troubled soul : 

Das ist alles recht schon und gut; 
Ungefahr sagt das der Pfarrer auch, 
Nur mit ein bischen andern Worten. 

As the Froebelian Kindergartner ponders the 
ideals which have created the socialized school she 
finds herself in a state of mind analogous to 
Gretchen's. For she, too, believes that education 
should strive to create a nobler social life. She 
admits a correspondence between the development 
of the individual and that of the race. She ac- 
cepts with whole heart the dictum that " the child 
must be conceived primarily as " an agent or 
doer." ^ She knows that instincts and impulses 
must be kept from '^ discharging at random and 
running off on side tracks." She wrestled with 

1 Ethical Ideals Underlying Education, Dr. John Dewey, 
p. 27. 

300 



THE LIVING ISSUE 301 

might and main against the free-plaj programme 
because it encouraged such '^ random discharges/' 
and because of its emphasis upon activities which 
were ^^ symptoms of a waning tendency '' ^ and 
survivals of an outgTown past. Her own most 
cherished conviction speaks to her in the words: 
'' Guidance is not external imposition. It is free- 
ing the life process for its own most adequate ful- 
fillment." ^ To her as to the creator of the social- 
ized school the problem of education is to find 
" the most effective points of attachment between 
the spontaneous activities of the child and the 
aims which we expect these powers to realize." ^ 
In her anxious mind the question forms itself, 
With so many points of agreement why do I so 
deeply disagree ? Are not the ideals of the social- 
ized school, she further queries, the very ideals I 
learned from Froebel, or do the similar sounding 
words express a different meaning ? Is this differ- 
ent meaning responsible for the practices I cannot 
approve? Is the explanation of this different 
meaning to be found in a context of ideas which 
must modify or rather completely transform every 
principle which advocates of school socialization 
seem to hold in common with the founder of the 
kindergarten ? 



» The Child and the Curriculum, p. 19. 2 75^^?., p. 22. 

3 Ethical Principles Underlying Education, p. 27. 



302 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

Many kindergartners are honestly perplexed by 
these questions. To answer them they must search 
their own minds and define their points of disa- 
greement with the ideals of the socialized school. 
May I blaze a rough path for such an exploring 
party by frankly confessing what I discover as I 
explore myself ? 

INDUSTRIES AND LITEEATUKE 

I begin by considering the relationship assumed 
to exist between industrial occupations and litera- 
ture. Dr. Dewey seems to hold that the charac- 
teristic industries of different periods of history 
stand in ancestral relation to their culture-prod- 
ucts.^ He claims that the chief value of these 
products lies in their reflection of natural facts 
and social conditions. He believes that children 
must develop, apperceptive organs for such prod- 
ucts by repeating the industries from which they 
descend. To borrow his own illustration contact 
with earth and seed, air and sun, knowledge of 
how agriculture is now carried on, what its prod- 
ucts are and how they reach the market are neces- 
sary preliminaries to sympathetic appreciation of 
the culture products of an agricultural stage of 
historic development.^ 

Looking into my own mind I discover that I 

> See Chapter X, pp. 292-3. ' Ibid., p. 287. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 303 

do not share these convictions. I do not believe 
that industries are the progenitors of culture prod- 
ucts. I am sure that the reflection of local and 
temporal conditions is not the chief value of litera- 
ture. My most cherished psychologic insight for- 
bids the approach to imagination through the un- 
derstanding. The elaborate preparation of an 
apperceiving mass for the seizure and digestion of 
culture-products seems to me to invert the true 
order of development whose point of departure is 
always the typical fact.^ 

A simple illustration may help to define my 
point of view. In the story of David there are 
details which point to a pastoral stage of develop- 
ment. David is a shepherd lad. He has devel- 
oped courage by struggling with the wild animals 
that attacked his sheep. In the lonely watches 
of the night he has learned to confide in a God 
who will protect him as he protects his flock. He 
fights with a shepherd's sling and with five smooth 
stones carried in a shepherd's bag. These details 
are picturesque and appealing, and if I may trust 
my own memories of childhood they can be appre- 
ciated without any actual experience of pastoral 
life. The supreme value of David's story, how- 
ever, lies not in the coloring of its details by a 

» See Chapter II, where I have attempted to show that with 
Uttle children typical facts must be presented in the guise of 
typical acts. 



304 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

pastoral experience but in the fact tliat through a 
most appealing concrete example it suggests every 
implication of the highest ideal of heroism. It 
opposes physical strength and vainglorious self- 
confidence to the high courage of a believing and 
ardent soul. Goliath is a giant completely armed. 
David is an unarmed and tender youth. The 
former is a braggart who magnifies his own prow- 
ess; the latter a hero of faith and humility fight- 
ing for the deliverance of his people in the 
strength of his God. ^' Come to me/' shouts 
the champion of the uncircumcized Philistines, 
^^ come to me and I will give thy flesh unto the 
fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field.'' 
" Thou comest to me," responds the young hero 
of Israel " with a sword and with a spear and 
with a shield, but I come to thee in the name of 
the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Is- 
rael whom thou hast defied. This day will the 
Lord deliver thee into mine hand." 

Every effort I make to test the tie between in- 
dustry and literature confirms my conviction 
that it is a very slender one. What essential rela- 
tionship exists between the stories of Boots, 
Dummling, or Cinderella, and any form of indus- 
trial activity? What light is cast by industrial 
avocations upon the myths of Bellerophon and 
Horatius, the stories of Daniel and Elijah, or the 
legends of the Holy Grail ? What explanation of 



d 



THE LIVING ISSUE 305 

the Oresteia of ^schylus or the (Edipus of Sopho- 
cles can be found in the industries of Greece dur- 
ing the lives of these two great dramatists ? What 
clew to the tragedy of Hamlet is furnished by the 
economic life of England in the Elizabethan age ? 
The reader who has given careful attention to 
the fourth chapter of this book will not accuse me 
of ignoring the connection between literature and 
life. But life and industry are not coextensive 
terms. The spirit of a people or an age is not 
fully expressed in and cannot be adequately inter- 
preted hy its industries. Every civilization em- 
bodies some specific ideal of family life, some pe- 
culiar social conventions, some determinate mode 
of political organization, and some characteristic 
type of religious dogma and worship, as well as 
some particular kind or kinds of industry. Its 
literature mirrors not one but all of the forms in 
which its spirit has sought incarnation. Hence 
the literature of an age should not be approached 
through its industries, but the industries, arts, and 
institutions of an age may all be approached 
through its literature." ^ 



> " There are five or six categories of facts or ideas which 
are the natural framework and afterwards continue to be the 
evidences for any civilization worthy of the name. They 
are language and grammar, religious dogma and worship, 
literature and fine art, philosophy and science, social organi- 
zation and political institutions." — Taine summarized hy 
21 



306 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

Xot only is the life of each historic people and 
age to be approached through its literature, but 
life and literature alike derive their supreme value 
from the conceptions which they embody of na- 
ture, of man, and of the power whence both pro- 
ceed ; or, from an awakened sense of defect in 
inherited conceptions and a struggle to make 
clearer and more comprehensive definitions. The 
culture-products of a constructive age mirror the 
ideals it is incarnating; the culture-products of a 
transitional age reflect the problems with which it 
wrestles. All great historic ideals are partial ex- 
pressions of generic humanity; all great human 
problems express the recurrent effort of man to 
define his generic nature more adequately and to 
comprehend more clearly its final presuppositions. 
It is because all true literature reveals mankind to 
men that the culture-products of each people and 
each age appeal to all people and all ages. 

This insight interprets the permanent interest 
of the literary products referred to in an earlier 
paragraph of this chapter. We do not outgrow 
Boots because the type of character he represents 
belongs to elect individuals in all ages. " He is 
the man whom Heaven helps because he can help 
himself, and so after his brothers try and fail, he 

Boutmy — Le Parthenon et le Genie Grec. I quote the passage 
as translated in The Athenian Drama: Sophocles, Introduc- 
tion, pp. xix, XX. 



I 



THE LIVING ISSUE 307 

alone can watch in the barn, and tame the steed, 
and ride up the glass hill, and gain the princess 
and half the kingdom.'' ^ We can never forget 
Bellerophon until the progeny of the Chimsera are 
extinct. Horatius will live so long as bra^e hearts 
respond to the call of country. Daniel and Elijah 
can never die while immortal spirits aspire toward 
communion with eternal reality; and until we re- 
nounce our Christian faith in the infinite worth 
of each human soul, we shall be spurred to roman- 
tic adventure by the example of the Knights of 
Chivalry. 

In the life of mankind as in the lives of indi- 
viduals there are dramatic crises — periods of tran- 
sition when " the old order changes making way 
for the new." Such a crisis is portrayed in the 
sublime trilogy of ^schylus whose argument is 
the deliverance of man from the duty of blood- 
revenge by the establishment of a great court of 
justice. The Oresteia is " the glorification of 
Athens — that is, of a truly human civilization," 
and to each appreciative reader '' the adventures 
of individual passion will seem as naught beside 
this colossal type of tragedy whose theme is the 
destiny of nations." ^ 

If literature is to reveal mankind to men it 

» Dasent's Norse Tales, Introduction, p. cxliv. 
2 Journal of Henri Amiel, translated by Mrs. Humphrey 
Ward. 



308 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

must not only celebrate human triumphs but un- 
veil the sources of human disaster. All men are 
" guilty innocents/' perpetually betrayed by pas- 
sion and pride into sins they would never have 
committed with intent. Of this guilty-innocent 
humanity the (Edipus of Sophocles is the consum- 
mate portrait. CEdipus solves the riddle of the 
Sphinx, yet, notwithstanding oracular warning of 
his impending fate slays his father and marries 
his mother. The poet psychologizes the old myth 
by showing that " the soul contains the event that 
shall befall it.'' He heaps one dramatic improb- 
ability upon another in order to make manifest 
the profundity of his hero's blindness. Hence the 
tragedy of the son of Laius is a revelation which 
forever ^^ confounds the conceit of human self- 
sufficiency in horror." ^ 

In contrast with the (Edipus, which discloses 
the fatal outcome of overweening self-confidence, 
Hamlet is a tragedy of the world-order which is 
perpetually challenging mankind to bring forth 
greater men by imposing upon existent humanity 
tasks it is not able to perform. " It is clear," says 
Goethe, " that in the character of Hamlet, Shake- 
speare meant to represent the effects of a great ac- 
tion laid upon a soul unfit for the performance 
of it. . . . There is an oak tree planted in a costly 



» The Athenian Drama: Sophocles, Introduction, p. 1. 



i 



THE LIVING ISSUE 309 

jar which should have borne only pleasant flow- 
ers in its bosom: the roots expand, the jar is shiv- 
ered. A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, 
without the strength which creates a hero, sinks 
beneath a burden which it cannot carry and must 
not cast away." ^ 

The two insights I have striven to suggest are 
that the literature of each nation and each age re- 
flects all aspects of its life, and that the varied life 
thus reflected is itself either an approximate em- 
bodiment of universal and abiding ideals, or ex- 
presses a struggle of the generic spirit to define 
these ideals more adequately. Manifestly neither 
the embodied ideals of a constructive age nor the 
haunting enigmas of an age of transition can be 
explained by their contemporaneous industries al- 
though it may be freely granted that industrial 
conditions conspire with other causes to create the 
Zeit Geist. In our own days, for example, the 
nearer intercourse between the East and West 
brought about by commercial enterprise is incit- 
ing a comparison between oriental and occidental 
ideals of religion, of domestic life, and of political 
organization, upon whose outcome depends the 
future of history. Commerce has furnished the 
occasion for this pregnant comparison, but it nei- 
ther offers solutions of the questions at issue nor 

1 Wilhelm Meister, Carlyle's translation. 



310 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

capacitates intellect for their adequate appre- 
hension. 



The question as to what constitutes the chifef 
value of culture-products is one of such moment 
in education that I am unwilling to leave it with- 
out some discussion of Dr. Dewey's view of the 
myth. In a statement already quoted * he affirms 
that " the myth has permanent value as a story in 
just the degree in which the child has been led 
for himself first to appreciate the natural facts 
and social conditions reflected in it." In another 
sentence of the article from which this statement 
is quoted, he says that '' it is self-deception to sup- 
pose that by some inner affinity between the myth 
and the child's nature he is being morally intro- 
duced into the civilization from which the myth 
sprung^ and is receiving a sort of spiritual bap- 
tism through literature." Finally, referring par- 
ticularly to the sun-myth, he tells us that if the 
child " has been led in his nature-study to realize 
the part played by the sun in the economy of life, 
if he has been led to appreciate the historic con- 
dition of people with a precarious relationship to 
fire, myths of the sun and fire may play a serious 
and worthy part." ^ 

» See Chapter X, p. 293. 

2 Interpretation of the Culture-Epoch Theory, Second Year 
Book of the National Herbart Society. (Italics mine.) 



i 



THE LIVING ISSUE 311 

I am not sure I understand these statements, 
for I find it impossible to believe what they seem 
to imply. I cannot suppose that Dr. Dewey 
really means that children should translate such 
myths as those of Herakles, Arthur, or St. 
George, into poetic portrayals of the conflicts of 
the sun; should recognize his rays in their invin- 
cible weapons, or his noonday splendor in their 
flaming eyes and streaming locks. But if this be 
not what he means and if w^e may tell our cher- 
ished myths in simple fashion and without expla- 
nation of their solar lineage, how shall we inter- 
pret the statement that ^^ myths of the sun play a 
serious and worthy part in education in so far 
as the child has been led through nature-study to 
realize the part played by the sun in the economy 
of life ? '' 

Waiving these intrusive doubts and confining 
ourselves to statements whose purport is unam- 
biguous, it is evident that to Dr. Dewey the spir- 
itual baptism of literature means introduction to 
some local and temporal form of social life and 
some particular natural environment. The word 
baptism suggests the thought which lies at the 
heart of my opposing contention. Baptism is the 
outer and visible sign of a regenerating agency. 
The natural man must be made over into a spir- 
itual man, and baptism is the rite under which the 
church symbolizes this transforming process. The 



312 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

baptism of literature means that it is one of the 
conspiring agencies through which the process of 
regeneration is effected.^ 

The prototype of all the heroes of myth is the 
hero in man. It was heroic man who made the 
sun battle with night, storm, and eclipse, and who 
in the victories of the Lord of Day beheld adum- 
brations of his own conquering career. Having 
thus idealized natural phenomena by imputing to 
them human meaning, men promptly forgot the 
phenomena idealized and the solar substrate of 
primitive myths remained hidden until it was re- 
discovered by the modern science of comparative 
philology. The interest of children in Heracles, 
Siegfried, and St. George is as unaffected by their 
solar descent as it is independent of the local 
and temporal setting of their heroic deeds. The 
value of myth is that through it deep calls unto 
deep and man challenges men. Humanity is a 
hero born to a conquering destiny. It is because 
myth portrays this hero and foreshadows his vic- 
torious career that it becomes for each participant 
member of humanity a baptism of the spirit and 
of fire. 

In its insistence that the child should be fed 
with nursery rhymes, fairy lore and myth Her- 
bartianism did its most righteous deed. In its 

» See Chapter V, Literature and Life. See also in Sym- 
bolic Education, Chapters III and IV. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 313 

insistence that these culture products should be 
made cores of interest it committed its great edu- 
cational offense. With the substitution of indus- 
trial avocations for classic stories as the articu- 
lating centers of school life, the vices of concentric 
instruction are increased and its one redeeming 
virtue lost. 

INDUSTRIES AND ART 

Literature is not the child of industry. Nei- 
ther, I hasten to add is art. 'No ^^ proud util- 
ity " gave birth to architecture, sculpture, paint- 
ing, music, or poetry. Long since wise Herr 
Teufelsdrockh made the startling suggestion that 
^' the first purpose of clothes was not warmth or 
decency but ornament,'' and that " the first spiri- 
tual want of barbarous man is decoration." It is 
interesting to find this suggestion repeated and 
amplified by that serious economic historian Carl 
Bucher in his book on Industrial Evolution. 

" Industrial activity," he writes, " seems every- 
where to start with the painting of the body, tat- 
tooing, piercing or otherwise disfiguring separate 
parts of the body, and gradually to advance to the 
production of ornaments, masks, petrograms, and 
similar play-products. In these things there is 
everywhere displayed a peculiar tendency to imi- 
tate the animals which the savage meets with in 
his immediate surroundings, and which he looks 



/ 



314 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

upon as his equals. The partly prehistoric rock 
drawings and carvings of the Bushmen, the In- 
dians and the Australians represent chiefly ani- 
mals and men; pottery, wood-carving, and even 
wickerwork begin with the production of animal 
forms. Even when the advance is made to the 
construction of objects of daily use (pots, stools, 
etc.), the animal figure is retained with remark- 
able regularity ; and lastly, in the dances of primi- 
tive peoples, the imitation of the motions and the 
cries of animals plays the principal part. All 
regularly sustained activity finally takes on a 
rhythmic form and becomes fused with music and 
song in an indivisible whole. 

" It is accordingly in play that technical skill is 
developed and it tends to the useful only very 
gradually. The order of progression hitherto ac- 
cepted must therefore be just reversed: play is 
older than work; art older than production for 
use.'' 1 

Assuming that Professor Bucher has thor- 
oughly verified the facts he presents in support of 
his statement of the historic priority of both play 
and art over production for use, we must deny to 
the educators who make industries the point of 
departure for art the right to buttress their pro- 
cedure by appeal to the parallel between the devel- 

» Industrial Evolution, Carl Bucher. Translation by S. 
Morley Makett, Ph.D., pp. 27, 28. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 315 

opment of the individual and that of the race. 
From the point of view of historic recapitulation 
the invented loom and the Indian blanket are not 
only unnecessary but misleading forerunners of 
decorative design. Is it not a psychologic error to 
suppose that the art instinct grows out of the con- 
structive instinct? Is it not a pedagogic blunder 
to claim that children need a motive for making 
designs other than pleasure in designing ? ^ 

The attempt to derive art from industry not 
only violates the order of history but implies a 
conception of art which ignores its defining mark. 
Such a defective conception of art is implied in 
the following sentence : " Make the construction 
adequate; make it full, free, and flexible; give it 
a social motive, something to tell, and you have a 
work of art." This statement identifies art with 
picture-writing and fails to recognize that " the 
distinctive principle of art is order, including 
under this general term rhythm, measure, propor- 
tion, and all those modes of arrangement used by 
artists which may be summarized as composi- 
tion." - A concrete genetic development of the 

» The children made a primitive loom in the shop; here the 
constructive instinct was appealed to. Then they wished to 
do something with this loom, to make something. . . . 
They were shown blankets woven by the Indians. Each 
child made a design, kindred in idea to those of the Navajo 
blankets. See in Chapter X, the context of this passage. 

2 See the discussion on art in Chapter II of this book. 



316 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

principles of composition must be included in any 
valid method of teaching art. 

The historic point of departure for the evolu- 
tion of art is the tattoo, which is a regular pattern 
pricked over the human body in order to make it 
more conformable to savage taste. It betrays a 
love for monotonous repetition which the savage 
himself does not understand but which is explica- 
ble through " the identity in form between the 
rhythm of his soul-activity and the sense-percep- 
tion by which he perceives, regularity.'' ^ A simi- 
lar delight in repetition is shown by every art in 
the earliest stage of its development. The first 
musical instruments are gongs, triangles, cymbals, 
jawbones, and rattles, wdiose sole purpose is to ac- 
centuate rhythmic intervals of time. The first 
poetry consists of metrical chants and refrains. 
Man creates art because he desires to reveal and 
know himself and he enjoys the regular recurrence 
of graphic elements, musical notes, and verbal 
phrases, because it corresponds with the primary 
fact of conscious intelligence which is that it in- 
volves a constant return of the self to the self. 
Art is therefore an aboriginal expression of the 
free human spirit ; it is play or spontaneous activ- 
ity which imposes upon itself the structural form 
of human consciousness. Self-consciousness in- 

1 Psychologic Foundations of Education, Wm. T. Harris, 
p. 354. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 317 

volves first the ever-recurrent return of the self 
to the self; second, the antithesis of the self and 
its object; third, the penetration by the self of its 
own manifold distinctions. To these several im- 
plications of self-consciousness correspond the 
three great principles of art, regularity or rhyth- 
mic repetition, symmetry or balance, and har- 
mony. 

Like the savage the young child enjoys per- 
cussion instruments and rhythmic phrases and 
delights in making rhythmic arrangements of but- 
tons, shells, pebbles, or other objects. Both his- 
tory and child study therefore suggest rhythmic 
arrangement as the psychologic point of departure 
for the development of art. We read that 

There are nine and sixty ways 

Of composing' tribal lays. 

And every single one of them is right. 

There are likewise countless ways of spacing and 
grouping concrete objects, graphic elements, and 
freely drawn figures. The primary aim of the 
art teacher should be to incite her pupils to origi- 
nal discovery of varied rhythmic arrangements. 
Later the principles of balance and harmony may 
also be learned through their creative application. 
In short, through a method of guided self-expres- 
sion mind and hand may be trained to artistic 



318 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

creation, and appreciation of the beautiful may be 
developed.^ 

'' On every grade of his being," says Mr. G. 
Baldwin Brown, " man possesses an ideal self- 
determined life existing side by side with but 
apart from his life as conditioned by material 
needs. This life expresses itself in, and is nour- 
ished by, various forms of free and spontaneous 
expression and action, which on the lower grades 
of his being may be termed simply play, but on 
the higher grades takes the shape of that rational 
and significant play resulting in art." We liber- 
ate the artist in the soul when we induce the child 
to impose upon creative activity its own ideal 
forms. 

INDUSTRIES AND HISTORY 

As the crowning values of literature and art 
are destroyed through relating them to industrial 
avocations, so the eminent meaning of history is 
lost sight of when spinning, weaving, and sewing 
are made its " articulating centers." To my mind 
the most puzzling sentence in School and Society 
is the sentence which affirms '' that the history of 
all mankind can be concentrated into the evolu- 
tion of the flax, cotton, and wool fibers into cloth- 
ing." The view of history which this sentence 

» See Composition, Arthur W. Dow. The Baker and Taylor 
Company, New York. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 319 

implies is amplified in the statement that " it is 
through occupations determined by natural en- 
vironment that mankind has made its political and 
historical progress/' ^ The pedagogic conclusion 
drawn is that '' industrial occupations shall be 
made points of departure whence children shall be 
led out into a realization of the historic develop- 
ment of man." 

Any conception which commends itself to hon- 
est and earnest thinkers must contain some vital 
truth. If I am not greatly mistaken the view of 
history presented owes its power to the fact that 
it ascends from the idea of extraneous relations 
between man and the world to the idea of a self- 
related totality of historic experience. This con- 
ception gets rid of two fallacies of thought. It 
throws away the idea of a fixed environment to 
which man must adjust himself, and the idea of 
a predetermined self, i. e., a self in which facul- 
ties exist prior to their exercise. History is a 
process of becoming w^herein both man and his 
world are constantly changing. Combining with 
his fellows, man makes over his world, and nature 
is the instrument of his '^ ever-increasing pur- 
pose. '^ Through interaction between the individ- 
ual, the social whole, and the physical environ- 

' In order to avoid repeating a quotation given in full in 
Chapter X, I have ventured to substitute the word natural 
for the word this. See Chapter X, pp. 289, 290. 



320 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

ment, all three are constantly modified. !N'either 
men, societies, nor nature are fixtures. All are 
fluid, transitive, evolutionary.^ 

The new return to nature was dominated by the 
idea of biologic recapitulation, and its master- 
word was Instinct. The socialized school is domi- 
nated by the idea of historic recapitulation, and 
its master-word is Purpose. It has been discov- 
ered that man has or rather is will. The entity 
known as consciousness may be fictitious, but the 
entity known as will is real and in essence is an 
activity directed toward the accomplishment of 
ends. For the sake of interrelated ends men act 
together and use nature as their tool. Through 
the accomplishment of these ends individuals, so- 
cieties, and the earth are progressively trans- 
formed. 

There is great inspiration in the belief that 
nature and humanity are not made but in process 
of making, and the interpretation of history as 
man's continuous creation of himself and his 
world challenges our gratitude for its service in 
delivering us from that relic of faculty psychol- 
ogy, the predetermined self, and that relic of me- 
chanical evolution the fixed environment. It is, 
however, a non sequitur conclusion from this con- 

» For a more adequate presentation of this view of history, 
see The Educational Theories of Herbart and Froebel, Dr. 
John Angus MacVannel, pp. 102-106. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 321 

ception of history that '^ it is through occupations 
determined by geographical environment that 
mankind has made its historical and political 
progress." Before this conclusion I halt, for I am 
sure that mankind has made its most notable ad- 
vances not through purpose and prose but through 
free self-expression, in play, in love, in art, in 
literature, and in religion. 

In the essays of that most poetic evolutionist, 
W. K. Clifford, I find a passage giving his view 
of the way in which " freedom or action from 
within has effected the evolution of physical or- 
ganisms. The improvement of a breed," he as- 
serts, " depends upon the selection of sports, that 
is to say, upon modifications due to the overflow- 
ing energy of the organism which happen to be 
useful to it in its special circumstances. Modifi- 
cations may take place by direct pressure of 
external circumstances; the whole organism or 
any organ may lose in size and strength from 
failure of the proper food, but such modifications 
are in the downward not in the upward direction. 
Indirectly external circumstances may, of course, 
produce upward changes. . . . But the immediate 
cause of change in the direction of higher organi- 
zation is always the internal and quasi-spontane- 
ous action of the organism.''^ ^ 

* Lectures and Essays, W. K. Clifford, vol. ii, p. 293. (Italics 
mine.) I should prefer to say that ascending changes are due 
22 



322 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

As sport or quasi-spontaneous activity is the 
immediate cause of ascending changes in the phys- 
ical world, so, free activity is the final source of 
human progress, and as we have seen the order of 
historic evolution is from play, through art to 
production for use. Activity for a purpose is his- 
torically later than activity which is its own end 
and reward. Moreover, it is always through ac- 
tivities which are ends in themselves that human- 
ity ascends to higher levels. The fine emotions, 
begotten of subtle personal relations, quicken the 
spirit of romance and spur to chivalrous adven- 
ture. " Beauty " which " is its own excuse for 
being " is forever beckoning responsive souls to 
new heights of life by its more perfect self-revela- 
tions. Religion, which is a spontaneous leap of 
free spirit toward the eternal freedom, augments 
the energy of intellect and will by its solution of 
the enigmas of origin and destiny. Out of the ro- 
mance of love, the delight in beauty, the fervor of 
moral enthusiasm, and the zest of intellect must 
be created nobler industries and a higher organi- 
zation of social and political life. Faust may end 
his career by draining a marsh but he would never 



to the action of life conceived as an energy transcendant of 
organism. I quote the passage not because it tallies exactly 
with my own point of view but because I hope it may approxi- 
mately suggest my point of view to persons holding the tenets 
of deterministic evolution. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 323 

have dreamed of the free man, among a free 
people, on a free soil, had he not loved Gretchen, 
wandered through classical Walpurgis Night, been 
wedded to Greek Helen, and learned from Chris- 
tianity of that divine grace which his poet creator 
symbolizes in the vision of the Ewig-Weibliche. 

In so far as we comprehend that through the 
varied forms of free self-expression man mounts 
from height to height of historic achievement we 
shall know that not industry but religion is the 
foundation of social life and the creator of civili- 
zation. For how can love be joyful, fervent, and 
faithful if haunted forever by prevision of its own 
sure and swift extinction? How can great litera- 
ture and art arise unless man learns to translate 
aright " the inner meaning of nature and human 
life ? " And how shall he discover this meaning 
save as he agonizes to answer the questions whence 
am I, whither go I, and for what reason am I 
here ? The belief that civilization has arisen out of 
man's struggle to get food, shelter, and clothing is 
an illusion. It has been created by his passionate 
quest for God, freedom, and immortality, and its 
different types are only to be explained by differ- 
ent answers to the haunting questions of human 
origin, human nature, and human destiny. 

I contrast the dominant religion of Asia whose 
supreme power can tolerate no freedom save its 
own with the Christian revelation of a loving God, 



324 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

whose eternal life is persistent communication of 
His own free being to His creatures. I contrast 
Nirvana where individuality is forever lost, with 
the city of God, where individuality is forever 
established through social communion. I contrast 
the governments of Asia where the ruler is every- 
thing and the people nothing, with the nations 
of Europe and America where the state is great 
in proportion to the greatness of its citizens. 
And, as my mind lingers over these contrasts, I 
become aware that their final explanation is to be 
found in the fact that the orient has interpreted 
nature and human life through the principle of 
proud and selfish exclusion, while the Christian 
Occident has interpreted both through that partici- 
pant humility whose root is love. Brahma shares 
nothing with the ephemeral manifestations of his 
abiding life. The Christian God yearns to share 
all He is with His creation, believes that men 
are worthy to participate in His being, and by the 
power of divine humility spans the chasm be- 
tween utter nothingness and eternal perfection. 

It is because Asia models her life upon the life 
of an excluding first principle " that she has des- 
potic governments and caste systems." For the 
same reason every typical Asiatic is both a slave 
and a tyrant. The nobleman is a slave to his em- 
peror and a tyrant to his retainers. Each retainer 
is a slave to his lord and a tyrant to those less in 



THE LIVING ISSUE 325 

rank than himself. The lowest man is a tyrant 
to his wife and children. ^Nothing is common, not 
even morality. The meaning of nature and hu- 
man life, as read by Asia, is that both are arbi- 
trary and vanishing manifestations of a Power 
which is ^' infinite, single, eternal, alone." In this 
answer to the question of origin lies the clew to 
her history and the explanation of her institu- 
tions. 

" Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven." The humble God who 
shares His being with His children expects of 
them conformity to His character. They must 
believe in each other as He believes in them. 
They must share with each other as He shares 
with them. Hence they must accept the truth that 
in some very deep sense all men are free and 
equal ; must recognize that in virtue of such free- 
dom and equality every individual is sacred ; must 
confess that the effort of all is needed to safeguard 
the liberty of each, and as the practical corollary 
of their generous creed must " mutually pledge to 
each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sa- 
cred honor that they will strive to secure equal 
and exact justice." 

In the convictions which I have briefly summar- 
ized is contained the key to occidental civilization. 
Their inspirer is the Christian religion. They 
tally with the conception of history as a process 



326 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

wherein man is making himself and his world. 
The freedom that they claim for each individual 
means that every man is a self-making energy. 
The equality they assume means participation in 
this energy. The consummation toward whicli 
they aspire is a self-related totality or social 
whole, each of whose members reflects its whole- 
ness and which will tolerate in its physical en- 
vironment nothing upon which it has not set its 
own stamp. 

In so far as man suspects himself to be a free 
being he liberates energy and develops wants. 
" Will the whole finance ministers and uphol- 
sterers and confectioners of modern Europe," ex- 
claims Carlyle, "undertake in joint-stock company 
to make one shoeblack happy? They cannot ac- 
complish it above an hour or two; for the shoe- 
black also has a soul quite other than his stomach, 
and would require for his permanent satisfaction 
and saturation simply this allotment and no more, 
and no less: God's infinite universe altogether to 
himself, therein to enjoy infinitely and fill every 
wish as fast as it rose." ^ This " infinite shoe- 
black " must learn that his cravings can be satis- 
fied only by the spiritual goods which are in- 
finitely shareable. Meantime, as a by-product of 
Christianity, we have the marvels of modern in- 

» Sartor Resartus. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 327 

dustrj. When man discovered his own infinite 
nature his wants increased and productive energy 
rose in its might to meet them. That most care- 
ful student of Asiatic civilization Mr. Meredith 
Townsend reminds us that '^ Asiatics have halted 
everywhere in their march toward mastery of 
nature." . . . ^^ They have treated earth as if 
they feared it. Dung is burned for fuel above un- 
used coal-bearing strata/' . . . and " though Asi- 
atics w^ork in all metals yet from end to end of 
Asia great stores of iron, of platinum and tin, of 
copjDer, silver, and gold lie untouched." ^ Asiat- 
ics will never master nature until they learn that 
they are masters of nature, and they cannot know" 
themselves as masters of nature until they discover 
themselves as children of God. 

Dear lover of playing childhood for whom I 
write — glad confessor of the faith that " Man 
made in the image of his Creator must from the 
beginning be conceived and treated as a creative 
being " — look into your own consciousness and 
see if it does not corroborate mine. Recall once 
more the fact that in the order of historic evolu- 
tion '^ play preceded art and art preceded pro- 
duction for use." Remember that in ages beyond 
the reach of our chronology men dreamed of a 
man w^ho had triumphed over space and time and 

» Asia and Europe, Meredith Townsend, p. 9. 



328 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

who was equipped for free activity as even yet in- 
dustry has not learned to equip her sons. Listen 
to the roar of the great battles of history from 
Marathon to Gettysburg and hear beneath their 
din the music of liberty. Let the great historic 
individuals whose names humanity cherishes with 
fondest reverence, march before you in stately 
procession and as you recognize Confucius, Gau- 
tama, Zarathustra, Moses, Isaiah, Christ ask your- 
self if they do not live forever in men's minds 
because of their ascending revelations of the truth 
which makes man free. Summon before imagina- 
tion the great monuments of history and try to 
enter into the spirit which created them. Pros- 
trate yourself in the Jewish Temple and confess 
your most enslaving sin! Lift adoring eyes 
toward the eternal loveliness enshrined in the 
Parthenon. Stand in the Roman Forum with 
head uncovered before the majesty of law. Enter 
the Pantheon, and lifting your eyes toward its 
wonderful dome reflect that as each stone is sup- 
ported and protected by all the rest, so the free- 
dom of each individual must be established in 
and through his relationship to the social whole. 
Last of all kneel in a great Gothic cathedral and 
feel divine love reaching downward to your noth- 
ingness and striving to lift you into the blessed- 
ness of its communion. Then shall you, too, con- 
fess with fervor that ^' history is the progress of 



THE LIVING ISSUE 329 

man into the consciousness of freedom," and that 
the stages of historic progress are defined by the 
knowledge that ^^ One is free j that some are free ; 
that all are free." 



INDUSTRIES AND SCIENCE 

We have considered the results which flow from 
the attempt to make industries '^ articulating cen- 
ters for literature, art, and history. There re- 
mains the consideration of their relation to 
science. In this case the connection is a more 
valid one. The principles of physics may be illus- 
trated through the machinery of production ; 
chemistry may be approached through cooking ex- 
ercises; botany through agriculture and horticul- 
ture; and natural history through care of domes- 
tic animals. On the other hand the method of 
scientific study illustrated in School and Society 
is open to two serious criticisms. The first is that 
children between the ages of eight and twelve are 
not capable of making the wide syntheses which it 
demands. They cannot intelligently trace the 
" effects of a mechanical invention upon modes of 
social life," neither are their minds capable of a 
process of unification including ^^ the study of 
fibers, of geographical features, the conditions 
under which raw materials are grown, the great 
centers of manufacture and distribution, the phys- 



330 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

ics involved in the machinery of production." ^ 
Such large unities belong to the period of matur- 
ity not to the period of childhood. The second 
criticism is that following this method we lose all 
possibility of a scientific evolution of the sciences. 
For to teach a science according to scientific 
method involves first, individual observation of 
its typical facts ; second, discovery of the relations 
subsisting between these facts; and, finally, in- 
sight into the principle which unifies these rela- 
tions. The method illustrated in School and So- 
ciety is so busy with the relationship of each 
subject to every other that it cuts itself off from 
the consideration of any particular subject as a 
self-related whole. 

MEEIT AND DEFECT OF THE SOCIALIZED SCHOOL 

The socialized school made a memorable con- 
tribution to scientific pedagogy in its effort to 
guide the spontaneous activities of childhood tow- 
ard the corresponding values of life. It has, 
however, undone its own best deed by assigning 
paramount value to human industries and by its 
attempt to make industries " articulating centers 
for science, history, literature, and art." 

In defense of its procedure the socialized school 
invokes the principle of historic recapitulation. I 

» See Chapter X of this book, pp. 291, 292. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 331 

have tried to show that the principle invoked con- 
demns its procedure. It may be conceded that 
each science is related to a corresponding art, but 
it must never be forgotten that the final spur of 
scientific activity is the search of a causative agent 
for a causality akin to its own. Literature and 
the fine arts are projections of a spirit which re- 
veals in order to discover itself. The first book of 
human history as opposed to human annals was 
written when a great people wakened to the con- 
sciousness of freedom. Greece refused the tribute 
of earth and water demanded by the Persian 
king, and the father of history celebrated the 
immortal deeds which followed hard upon her 
high defiance. Science, literature, art, and his- 
tory are all revelations of the free, self-creating, 
self-defining activity of the human spirit. It may 
be added that lacking free activity man could 
never have developed and organized industries, 
but must have remained forever ^^ a root-digging, 
fruit-eating animal.'' ^ 

The condensed result of our critical discussion 
is that the methods of the socialized school have 
been vitiated by an erroneous view of the process 
of historic development. This misleading inter- 
pretation of history in turn has apparently been 
provoked by the conviction that the sole aim of tlie 

» Industrial Evolution, Bucher, p. 29. 



332 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

school is to prepare for social life, combined with 
a conception of social life whose almost exclusive 
emphasis is upon the relationship of the indi- 
vidual to the economic organization. It is true 
that in theoretic presentations of its ideal we are 
told that the school should prepare not only for 
industrial activity but for membership in the fam- 
ily and the state. Even in these theoretic presen- 
tations, however, the ideal of economic efficiency 
is paramount, and in practice it becomes not only 
paramount but almost exclusive of other aims. 
The result is that the socialized school fails to 
make adequate provision for the " things fertile 
of distinctive individuality." In the choice of 
subject matter preference is given to industries 
and applied science. In method the preponderant 
appeal is to dry and frigid understanding. In 
character the qualities most valued are " force, 
efficiency in execution, initiative, insistence, per- 
sistence, courage, and industry." ^ The man 
"whom the socialized school aims to produce is the 
w^orthy and efficient member of a developing in- 
dustrial organization. Gazing upon his portrait we 
understand the process proposed for his creation: 

We are in the midst of a tremendous industrial and 
commercial development. New inventions, new ma- 
chines, new methods of transportation and intercourse 

' Ethical Principles Underlying Education, p. 29. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 333 

are making over the whole scene of action year by 
year. It is an absolute impossibility to educate the 
child for any fixed station in life. So far as education 
is conducted unconsciously or consciously on this 
principle, it results in fitting the future citizen for 
no station in life, but makes him a drone, a hanger-on^ 
or an actual retarding influence in the onward move- 
ment. Instead of caring for himself and others he 
becomes one who has himself to he cared for. Here, 
too, the ethical responsibility of the school on the 
social side must be interpreted in the broadest and 
freest spirit; it is equivalent to that training of the 
child which will give him such possession of himself 
that he may take charge of himself; may not only 
adapt himself to the changes that are going on, but 
have power to shape and direct those changes/ 

» Ethical Principles Underlying Education, p. 12. (Italics 
mine.) 

I hope my readers will understand that I am not attacking 
the need of that form of education which prepares for indus- 
trial efficiency, but that I am questioning whether this form 
of education should be given paramount value in our elemen- 
tary schools. Dr. Dewey tells us that ''hardly one per cent 
of the entire school population ever attains to what we call 
higher education; only five per cent to the grade of our high 
school; while much more than half leave on or before the 
completion of the fifth year of the elementary grade." — School 
and Society, p. 42. It seems to me a great mistake to lose 
our short opportunity of helping children to create a larger 
personality and therefore a richer life, by concentrating our 
attention upon preparing them for industrial efficiency. As 
a recent article in the Outlook points out, "An education 
which trains men only to make a living and does not fit them 
to make a life would sap the very sources of inspiration and 
make a monotonous workshop of the modern world." 



334 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

^' Consider the ant/' says a brilliant contempo- 
rary essayist, " Consider the ant and beware of 
her. She is there for a warning. In universal 
anthood there are no ants. From that fate may 
men save man." ^ The condemnation of the so- 
cialized school is that its practice " engenders in- 
distinction.'' If a nation be great in proportion 
to the greatness of its individuals then one aim 
of education should be to liberate all forms of 
spiritual energy, to accentuate the idea of personal 
distinction, and to cultivate not only practical in- 
telligence and efficiency but fine perception, sen- 
sitive feeling, delicate and discriminating taste, 
prescient imagination and rational insight. Such 
an education will have in view not only or chiefly 
the efiicient member of a developing industrial 
system but the statesman, the poet, the artist, the 
spiritual seer, and the philosopher. May it be in 
part because education has been overzealous to 
give practical knowledge that America is failing 
to produce her quota of great individuals. 

The dominance of industrial ideals has not only 
reacted unfavorably upon the school curriculum 
but has also created a false conception of school 
discipline. I agree with Dr. Dewey that 'border 
is simply a thing which is relative to an end.'' 
The kind of order enforced will therefore depend 

» A Modern Symposium, G. Lowes Dickinson, p. 156. 



THE LIVING ISSUE 335 

upon the end set. If the aim of the school be to 
prepare for social life and if participation in so- 
cial life be construed to mean efficient cooperation 
with the economic organization then, manifestly 
the school must be transformed into an embryonic 
community of industrial type and its order will 
be the order of a busy workshop. But if the func- 
tions of the school are to endow the individual so 
far as possible with the experience of the race and 
to make him master of the instrumentalities 
through which he may increasingly assimilate this 
experience, then its discipline must conform more 
nearly to that sanctioned by the best tradition. 

There is one feature connected with the substi- 
tution of the order of the workshop for the order 
of the traditional school which has not received 
sufficient attention. In the actual workshop there 
is work which must be done, and the workmen are 
there to do it. This work is not for their develop- 
ment. They labor for the sake of a product and 
the great lesson they learn is that of self-subordi- 
nation. In the socialized school, on the contrary, 
" the typical occupations followed are freed from 
all economic stress," and " the aim is not the eco- 
nomic value of the products but the development 
of social power and insight," ^ In other words, 
the order of the workshop is dissociated from the 

1 School and Society, p. 32. 



336 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

purposes of the workshop; is, therefore, not rela- 
tive to its own end and losing this relation cannot 
be maintained. 

One of the most valuable lessons of history is 
the ruin which results when one institution bor- 
rows the form and usurps the function of another. 
The socialized school borrows the form and usurps 
the function of civil society and thereby condemns 
itself. Civil society is the institution through 
whose organizing agency each individual profits 
by the labor of the social whole and in return con- 
tributes to the whole his mite of service. The 
principle of this great institution is economy. 
Human power is economized through the speciali- 
zation of vocations. By making it possible for 
each individual to do something which in virtue 
of natural aptitude he can do rapidly, easily, and 
well, the amount of production is increased and 
the drudgery of life diminished. Furthermore, 
specialized vocations increase the dependence of 
each individual upon all others and thereby con- 
tribute to the solidarity of society. The educa- 
tional influence of participation in the activities 
of civil society is very great, but it is dependent 
upon the existence of actual duties and genuine 
responsibilities. When the school models herself 
upon the economic organization she does its educa- 
tional work badly and minimizes her ability to 
do her own. 



i 



THE LIVING ISSUE 337 

THE METHOD OF FKOEBEL VERSUS THE METHOD 
OF THE SOCIALIZED SCHOOL 

If the questioning kindergartner for whom this 
book is written has followed me as I have explored 
my consciousness, she should now be aware of the 
contrast between the method of Froebel and the 
method of the socialized school. The reason for 
this contrast should also be apparent to her mind. 
Both forms of education accept as their point of 
departure the spontaneous activities of childhood. 
Both confess that from among such activities those 
which relate to the values of life must be selected. 
The procedure of the socialized school, however, 
is dominated by the assumptions that all man is 
he has made himself in and through the historic 
process and that the '^ articulating centers " of this 
process have been industrial avocations deter- 
mined by geographical environment. Recapitulat- 
ing this process it seeks to relate literature, science, 
art, and history to industries. The method of the 
traditional kindergarten, on the contrary, presup- 
poses that both the great human values and the 
manifestations of childhood which point toward 
them, are primal outpourings of the free human 
spirit. ' 

The kindergartner who participates in this in- 
sight will reject the idea that children need ex- 
traneous motives to induce them to dance and 
23 



338 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

sing, play dramatic games, string beads, arrange 
pebbles or tablets; build, draw, paint, model, in- 
vestigate, or listen to fairy tales. Her aim will be 
to call forth the varying forms of self-creative 
activity; her emphasis will be upon the artist as 
opposed to the artisan ; her supreme desire will be 
to stir those primal affections which are the emo- 
tional equivalents of our religious, ethical, politi- 
cal, and aesthetic ideals, and the characteristic fea- 
ture of her method will be appeal to imagination 
through typical acts, facts, characters, relations, 
and processes.^ 

In so far as the methods of the socialized school 
have reacted upon the kindergarten they have re- 
sulted in the substitution of work for that media- 
torial activity wherein the form of play is 
freighted with ideal values. They have likewise 
substituted appeal to understanding for appeal to 
imagination, and they have galvanized into spas- 
modic activity the moribund theory of concentra- 
tion. The living issue between kindergartners is 
whether the influence of these reactions shall per- 
sist. The indications are that their prestige is 
waning and that their hour of prevailing vogue 

draws to its close. 

• — — 

1 See Chapter II. 



CHAPTEK XII 



THEEE WORLD VIEWS 



In that great soul drama which faces all the 
problems, wrestles with all the doubts, and battles 
with all the sins of the modern world there are 
two contrasting passages whose structural signifi- 
cance escapes the notice of many readers. The 
first is the soliloquy in which Faust, immediately 
before signing his compact with the devil, curses 
the whole world-order, and as the climax of his 
blasphemy curses patience most of all. The sec- 
ond is the passage in which the aged Faust, recon- 
ciled to the world-order, denounces the impatient 
and inconsiderate deed through which Baucis and 
Philemon lest their lives, and shakes himself for- 
ever free from the toils of Mephistopheles. Be- 
tween the curse directed against an arbitrary and 
malignant universe, and the denunciation of a 
deed done in violation of the nature of an altru- 
istic universe, the poem runs its redeeming course. 

The curse upon the world-order follows the 
scene in which Faust makes a last vain struggle 
to hold his faith in God. As the result of all his 
339 



340 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

study he has come to the conclusion that nothing 
can be known. Therefore, the loves, the hopes, 
the aspirations of life are lying dreams. With 
inexorable logic Faust curses hope, for there is 
nothing to look forward to ; cu;:'ses faith, for there 
is nothing to be believed; and curses patience 
most of all, for why should man, the conscious 
and suffering product of an unconscious universe, 
submit patiently to the stings and arrows of his 
outrageous fortune ? 

The mental attitude of imprecation is frequent 
in contemporary literature. To give only a single 
example the following passage from Maeterlinck's 
Life of the Bee reads almost like a repetition of 
the curse of Faust. ^' Human consciousness is 
probably the most surprising phenomenon this 
world contains. It is this which permits us to 
raise our head before the unknown principle and 
say to it: What you are I know not, but there 
is something within me that already enfolds you. 
You will destroy me, perhaps, but if your object 
be not to construct from my ruins an organism 
better than mine, you will prove yourself inferior 
to what I am and the silence which will follow 
the death of the race to which I belong will declare 
to you that you have been judged. And if you 
are not capable even of caring if you be justly 
judged or not, of what value can your secret be ? 
It must be stupid or hideous. Chance has enabled 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 341 

you to produce a creature that you yourself lacked 
the quality to produce. It is fortunate for him 
that a contrary chance should have permitted you 
to suppress him before he had fathomed the depths 
of your unconsciousness ; more fortunate still that 
he does not survive the infinite series of your 
awful experiments. He had nothing to do in a 
world where his intellect corresponded to no eter- 
nal intellect, where his desire for the better could 
attain no actual good.'' 

This passage states the haunting issue in men's 
souls with the greatest precision. Man is con- 
scious. If there be no eternal consciousness to 
v>^hich his consciqusn^s corresponds, he is an out- 
cast of the universe. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURALISM 

^^ I have swept space with my telescope," says 
Lalande, " and found no God." The picture 
which materialistic science unveils before the 
mind's eye is that of a chance and purposeless 
process. " While the embryo of a new world is 
being formed from a nebula in one corner of 
the vast stage of the universe, another has con- 
densed into a rotating sphere of liquid fire in 
some far-distant spot ; a third has already cast 
off rings at its equator which round themselves 
into planets; a fourth has become a vast sun 
whose planets have formed a secondary retinue of 



342 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

moons." Thus are the worlds born but they are 
born only to die, for '^ after a while the frozen 
moons shall fall onto their planets; the planets 
onto their suns. Two distant suns perhaps al- 
ready stark and cold rush together with incon- 
ceivable force and melt away into nebulous clouds, 
and such prodigious heat is generated by the col- 
lision that the nebula is once more raised to in- 
candescence and the old drama begins again." ^ 

The universe thus described is a mad dance; a 
nauseating whirl from nothingness to nothingness. 
Our earth is one of the partners in its backward 
and forward swing, and upon its surface life in all 
its stages enacts a monstrous^ drama. In the plant 
Avorld individual is arrayed against individual, 
species against species, and scarcely a speck of 
earth can be found where warfare is not as cease- 
less as it is cruel. In like manner every animal 
preys upon other animals and is in turn preyed 
upon by creatures frenzied with the blind strug- 
gle for life. Moreover, with sensibility is born 
malignant passion and the mad dance of stars and 
planets, the mad slaughter of the vegetable world 
begins to feel itself in the animal world as lust, 
hatred, cruelty, revenge, and murderous impulse. 
Human history presents a spectacle of similar ma- 
lignity and futility. Its incitements are fated 

» Haeckel, The Riddle of the Universe. Translated by 
Joseph McCabe, pp. 72, 73. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 343 

emotions and fated ideas for every feeling which 
stirs the human breast, ^' every decision at which 
mankind have arrived and every consequent action 
which they have performed was implicitly deter- 
mined by the quantity and distribution of the 
various forms of matter and energy which pre- 
ceded the birth of the solar system." ^ The out- 
come of this fatal history is a common grave for 
the successive races and nations which for a brief 
hour strut across earth's tragic stage. " Final 
wreck and tragedy/' says Professor James, ^^ is of 
the essence of scientific materialism as at present 
understood. The lower and not the higher forces 
are the eternal forces or the last surviving forces 
within the only cycle of evolution which we can 
definitely see." ^ 

THE EEACTION AGAINST NATURALISM 

Against final wreck and tragedy the human 
mind rebels, and alike in contemporary novels 
and essays and in contemporary psychology and 
philosophy may be discerned the effort of thought 
to free itself from the disheartening conclusions 
of materialistic science. The novelists who a few 
years ago could portray nothing but the fatal con- 
flict of blind passions, and some of whom, carried 
away by their Interest in instinct preferred ani- 

> The Foundations of Belief, Balfour, p. 20. 
2 Pragmatism, William James, p. 105. 



344 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

mal to human heroes, are now depicting men and 
women who take their '' fighting chance " and 
with resolute will attack hereditary evil. Essay- 
ists are writing of individual and national 'pur- 
poses as opposed to individual and national im- 
pulses. Science suspects that natural selection 
cannot fully account for evolution, and that in 
attempting to explain the history of the organic 
world we must give due weight to the action of 
human and animal intelligence. Psychology dis- 
covers that in virtue of ^^ the part played hy vol- 
untary attention in volition a belief in free will 
and purely spiritual causation is still open to 
us." ^ The conviction gains currency that the 
atoms out of which science evolves the universe 
are nothing but naive projections of man's own 
sensations, and that its assumed unknowable force 
is a projection of his blind will. Thought shifts 
its center of gravity from the outer to the inner 
world and once again makes man ^' the measure 
of all things." A cheering revival of faith, hope, 
and courage begins to make itself felt. The essay- 
ist, who incontestably interprets most sympathetic- 
ally the consciousness of his contemporaries, jus- 
tifies this revival by the folloAving reasons: 

We are just at the moment when a thousand new 
reasons for having confidence in the destinies of our 

1 Talks to Teachers, William James, p. 191. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 345 

kind are being born around us. For hundreds and 
hundreds of centuries we have occupied this earth; 
and the greatest dangers seem past. They were so 
threatening that we have escaped them only by a 
chance that cannot occur more than once in a thou- 
sand times in the history of the worlds. The earth 
still too young was poising its continents, its islands, 
and its seas before fixing them. The central fire, the 
first master of the planet, was at every moment burst- 
ing from its granite prison; and the globe, hesitating 
in space, wandered among greedy and hostile stars 
ignorant of their laws. Our undetermined faculties 
floated blindly in our bodies, like the nebulae in the 
ether; a mere nothing could have destroyed our hu- 
man future at the groping hours when our brain was 
forming itself, when the network of our nerves was 
branching out. To-day the instability of the seas and 
the uprisings of the central fire are infinitely less to 
be feared; in any case it is unlikely that they will 
bring about any more universal catastrophes. As for 
the third peril, collision with a stray star, we may be 
permitted to believe we shall be granted the few cen- 
turies of respite necessary for us to learn how to ward 
it off. When we see what we have done and what we 
are on the point of doing, it is not absurd to hope that 
one day we shall lay hold of that essential secret of 
the worlds which, for the time being, and to soothe 
our ignorance (even as we soothe a child and lull it 
to sleep by repeating to it meaningless and monoto- 
nous words) we have called the law of gravitation. 
There is nothing mad in supposing that the secret of 
this sovereign force lies hidden within us or around 
us within reach of our hand. It is perhaps tractable 
and docile, even as light and electricity; it is per- 



346 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

haps wholly spiritual, and depends upon a very simple 
cause which the displacing of an object may reveal 
to us. The discovery of an unexpected property of 
matter, analogous to that which has just disclosed 
to us the disconcerting qualities of radium, may lead 
us straight to the very sources of the energy and life 
of the stars; and from that moment man's lot would 
be changed and the earth, definitely saved, would 
become eternal. It would, at our pleasure, draw 
closer to or farther from the centers of heat and 
light; it would flee from worn-out suns and go in 
search of unsuspected fluids, forces and lives, in the 
orbit of virgin and inexhaustible worlds.^ 

Hope revives ^^ when we see what we have done 
and what we are doing." The most characteristic 
feature of contemporary thought is the transfer of 
attention from instinct to will, from human pas- 
sions to human purposes. Singularly enough 
there seems a lack of agreement as to what these 
purposes should be. The end of man is assumed 
to be action. But action itself needs a fi.nal end 
and what this final end should be our prophets 
seem not to know. 

^^ The golden rule is that there should be no 
golden rule." Into this pointed epigram Mr. 
Bernard Shaw condenses the result of a fashion 
of thought which, while recognizing human voli- 
tion, tends to disparage human reason by conceiv- 

» The Double Garden, Maurice Maeterlinck, pp. 341-344. 
Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. (Italics mine.) 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 347 

ing it as nothing but a weapon forged by will for 
the accomplishment of its blind purposes. We can- 
not depend upon any of our present moral impera- 
tives because they represent '^ merely temporary 
adaptations made in the struggle for existence.'' 
" The will of man is forever outgrowing his ideals, 
and therefore conformity to them is constantly 
producing results no less tragic than those which 
follow the violation of ideals which are still 
valid." ^ Men " ought to be as careful how they 
yield to a temptation to tell the truth as to a temp- 
tation to hold their tongues " ; and as for women, 
" the desirability of their preserving their chas- 
tity depends just as much on circumstances as the 
desirability of taking a cab instead of walking." ^ 
The taking of life is a frequent duty. The heredi- 
tary criminal ^' is a coil of wild serpents which 
seldom are at rest with each other, thus singly 
they depart to search for prey in the world." ^ 
He should be put out of existence through love for 
the beyond man toward whom life is striving.* 



> Ibsen, Bernard Shaw. 2 Ibid. 

3 Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietsche, p. 46. 

* "The role, then, of those whom our plan would eliminate 
consists of the following classes of individuals coming under 
the absolute control of the state; idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, 
habitual drunkards, and insane criminals; the larger number 
of murderers; nocturnal housebreakers, such criminals, what- 
ever their offense as anight through their constitutional organiza- 
tion appear very dangerous; and, finally, criminals who might 



348 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

As defective organization makes life worthless, so 
hopeless disease makes it a prolonged misery. The 
responsibility of ending it may be freely assumed 
by individual physicians and nurses. The Ten 
Commandments have not only budged but toppled 
to pieces, and as we learn from one of the most 
widely read novels of the hour ^^ La vraie morale 
se moque de la morale.^^ ^ 

In so far as the adaptive ingenuity with which 
it is proposed we should replace '' our conven- 
tional morality " sets itself any ends, these ends 
seem to be the preservation of healthy human 
life and the improvement of the human brain. 
^^ Believe me,'' says the spokesman of the new 
ideal in Maeterlinck's drama of Monna Vanna, 
" believe me nothing is worth a life that one 
saves; all the virtues, all the ideals of man, all 
that he calls honor, fidelity, and the like, seem 
but a child's game in comparison." ^ " Life," 
declares the hero of Mr. Shaw's drama, Man 
and Superman, " is a force which has made in- 
numerable experiments in organizing itself . . . 

be adjudged incorrigible. Each individual of these classes 
would undergo thorough examination, and only by due process 
of law would his life be taken from him." — Heredity and 
Human Progress, by W. Duncan McKim, M.D., Ph.D., p. 
192. (ItaHcs mine.) 

» The Fruit of the Tree, by Edith Wharton. 

2 Monna Vanna, translated by Alexis Irenee Du Pont 
Coleman, p. 24. • 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 349 

the mammoth and the man, the mouse and the 
megatherium, the flies and the fleas, and the 
fathers of the church, are all more or less suc- 
cessful attempts to build up that raw force into 
higher and higher individuals, the ideal indi- 
vidual being omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, 
and withal completely, unilludedly self-conscious ; 
in short, a god." ^ With this effort of life man- 
kind must conspire. '^ Liberty is no longer catho- 
lic enough," and hereafter " men will die for 
human perfection to which they will sacrifice all 
their liberty gladly." - The way to create this 
human perfection is by getting ^' better births and 
a better result from the births we get," ^ and " any 
collective human enterprise, institution, move- 
ment, party, or state is to be judged as a whole 
and completely, as it conduces more or less to 
wholesome and hopeful births, and according to 
the qualitative and quantitative advance due to its 
influence made by each generation of citizens born 
under its influence toward a higher and ampler 
standard of life." ^ 

I have tried to indicate as briefly as possible 
the more marked tendencies of contemporary lit- 
erature. Their point of departure is a transfer 

» Man and Superman, pp. 113, 114. 2 Ibid., p. 110. 

3 Mankind in the Making, H. G. Wells, p. 30. 
* Ibid., p. 19. The same ideal is presented in a novel by 
this author entitled The Food of the Gods. 



350 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

of interest from instinct to will conceived as free 
and indeterminate. Their point of arrest would 
seem to be the repudiation of " absolute standards 
and eternal values." Intellect is conceived as the 
tool of a sovereign though rather blind energy of 
volition. This energy must perforce act, but the 
brains it has thus far created are able to conceive 
with clarity only proximate ends. It will there- 
fore concentrate effort upon improving the in- 
strument of intellection, will frankly recognize 
that the purpose set involves '^ a transvaluation 
of all moral values/' and will relegate final prob- 
lems to the greater humanity it aspires to create. 
When it has made superman, possibly, he may 
know what is worth doing. 

Each age has problems peculiar to itself. Its 
solutions of these problems are reflected in its lit- 
erature and later interpreted by its philosophy. 
Feeling, action, imagination, and discursive re- 
flection must always outrun philosophy, because 
philosophy is consciousness exploring, inventory- 
ing, organizing, and explaining its own content. 
The philosophy which most nearly interprets the 
content of much contemporary thought is begin- 
ning to be generally known as Pragmatism.^ 

1 I do not mean to imply that Pragmatism indorses all the 
subversive opinions which have found expression in literature. 
It is, however, undoubtedly attacking the same problems as 
contemporary literature and making analogous though not 
identical solutions. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 351 



PRAGMATISM 



In his Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychol- 
ogy Professor Baldwin defines Pragmatism as 
" the opinion that metaphysics is to be largely 
cleared up by the application of the following 
maxim for attaining clearness of apprehension: 
" Consider what effects, that might conceivably 
have practical bearings, we conceive the object of 
our conception to have. Then our conception of 
these effects is the whole of our conception of the 
object." 

Strictly speaking the above definition applies 
only to the pragmatic method. It is vindicated by 
the fact that it Avas as a method alone that prag- 
matism made its modest debut upon the stage of 
thought. The word Pragmatism Professor James 
tells us, '' was first introduced into philosophy by 
Mr. Charles S. Peirce," " who in an article en- 
titled How to Make Our Ideas Clear " pointed 
out " that our beliefs are really rules for action," 
and urged " that to develop a thought's meaning 
w^e need only determine what conduct it is fitted 
to produce." ^ ^^ To attain perfect clearness in 
our thoughts of an object," adds Professor James, 
" we need only consider what conceivable effects 
of a practical kind the object may involve — what 

1 Pragmatism, William James, p. 46. 



352 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

sensations we are to expect from it, and what re- 
actions we must prepare. Our conception of these 
effects, whether immediate or remote, is then for us 
the whole of our conception of the object, so far as 
that conception has positive significance at alL'' ^ 

In brief, the pragmatic method is that which 
tests ideas by their consequences. Its Achilles 
tendon is that it lacks any criterion by which to 
test these consequences themselves. Professor 
James admits that pragmatism has to postpone 
dogmatic answer with regard to the truth of any 
form of religion because pragmatists do not " yet 
know certainly which type of religion is going to 
work best in the long run.'' ^ But how can a con- 
sistent pragmatist ever know what religion will 
work ^' best ? " Upon his own principle who or 
what shall decide that ^' best " whose working is 
the criterion of selection ? Lacking an eternal and 
absolute standard for the ^' Best '' he can never 
know the true. Neither, it may be added, can he 
know the good, and hence his estimate of moral 
values must be as shifting and uncertain as his es- 
timate of religious values. Is he not in the same 
case with our literary prophets who, sure as they 
are that " the end of man is action," seem imable 
to find for action any final and consistent ends ? ^ 

1 Pragmatism, p. 47. 2 75^^,^ p, 300. 

3 The doctrine (Pragmatism) appears to assume that the 
end of man is action. ... If it be admitted, on the contrary, 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 353 

A dilemma so obvious as the one suggested 
could not fail to escape the notice of pragmatists 
themselves. Its solution has been attempted by 
the extension of pragmatism from a method of 
philosophic procedure to a theory of truth. As a 
method, pragmatism asks what will work? As a 
theory of truth it is the conviction that ideas be- 
come true in so far as they accomplish the work 
of uniting new experience with old. '^ Any idea 
upon which we can ride, so to speak ; any idea that 
will carry us prosperously from any one part of 
our experience to any other part, linking things 
satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, sav- 
ing labor ; is true for just so much, true in so far 
forth, true instrumentally." ^ 

This instrumental theory of truth was reached, 
as Professor James points out, by generalizing the 
process through which men settle into ncAV opin- 
ions. ^' The individual has a stock of old opinions 
already, but he meets a new experience that puts 
them to a strain. Somebody contradicts them ; or 
in a reflective moment he discovers that they con- 
that action wants an end and that that end must be something 
of a general description, then the spirit of the maxim itself, 
which is, that we must look to the upshot of our concepts in 
order rightly to apprehend them, would direct us toward 
something different from practical facts, namely, to general 
ideas." — Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, by James 
Mark Baldwin. 

1 Pragmatism, William James, p. 58. 
24 



354 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

tradict each other ; or he hears of facts with which 
they are incompatible; or desires arise in him 
which they cease to satisfy. The result is an in- 
ward trouble to which his mind till then had been 
a stranger, and from which he seeks to escape by 
modifying his previous mass of opinions. He 
saves as much of it as he can, for in this matter 
of belief we are all extreme conservatives. So he 
tries to change first this opinion, and then that 
(for they resist change very variously), until at 
last some new idea comes up which he can graft 
upon the ancient stock with a minimum of dis- 
turbance of the latter, some idea that mediates be- 
tween the stock and the new experience and runs 
them into one another most felicitously and ex- 
pediently." 

" The new idea is then adopted as the true one. 
It preserves the older stock of truth with a mini- 
mum of modification." . . . The most violent 
revolution in an individual's beliefs leave most of 
his old order standing. . . . IS^ew truth is always 
a go-between, a smoother over of transition. It 
marries old opinion to new fact so as ever to show 
a minimum of jolt, a maximum of continuity. 
. . . The reasons why we call things true is the 
reason why they are true, for to be true means 
only to perform this marriage function." ^ 

Justice to the pragmatic conception of truth 

> Pragmatism, pp. 59-64. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 355 

demands explicit recognition of the fact that man 
is conceived not as its sole creator, but only as one 
of the participant agencies in its continuous crea- 
tion. This limitation of man's creative function 
redeems the pragmatic doctrine from the reproach 
that it destroys all objective standards. Reality 
exists ; it is " something resisting yet malleable." ^ 
This resisting yet malleable reality consists of 
*^ the flux of our sensations . . . the relations 
that obtain between our sensations or between 
their copies in our minds/' ^ and, finally, of 
" the previous truths of which every new inquiry 
must take account." ^ According to pragmatism 
man is " pent in . . . between the whole body of 
funded truths squeezed from the past and the co- 
ercions of the world of sense about him." * He 
feels the ^' immense pressure of objective con- 
trol." ^ On the other hand " in our cognitive as 
w^ell as in our active life, we are creative. We 
add both to the subject and the predicate part of 
reality. The world stands really malleable wait- 
ing to receive its final touches at our hands. Like 
the kingdom of heaven it suffers human violence 
willingly. Man engenders truths upon it." ^ 

Not only are such truths as we possess man- 
made, but man might have made quite other 

» Pragmatism, p. 258. 2 75^^.^ p. 244. 

3 Ibid., p. 245. * Ibid., p. 233. 

5 Md., p. 257. , 



356 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

truths. Common sense, for example, means in 
philosophy the " use of certain intellectual forms 
or categories of thought." ^ These categories or 
" fundamental ways of thinking about things are 
discoveries of exceedingly remote ancestors which 
have been able to preserve themselves through- 
out the experience of all subsequent time.^ . . . 
^' Like our five fingers, our ear bones, our rudi- 
mentary caudal appendage, or our other vestigial 
peculiarities, they may remain as indelible tokens 
of events in our race history. Our ancestors may 
at certain moments have struck into ways of think- 
ing which they might conceivably not have found. 
But once they did so and after the fact the inheri- 
tance continues. When you begin a piece of music 
in a certain key, you must keep the key to the 
end." ^ The categories of common sense are 
merely working hypotheses. They seem, more- 
over, to be products of our psycho-physical organ- 
isms, for we read that ^^ were we lobsters or bees 
it might be that our organization would have led 
to our using quite different modes from these of 
apprehending our experiences. It might be, too 
(we cannot dogmatically deny this), that such 



' Pragmatism, p. 171. The following enumeration of these 
categories is given on p. 173. Thing; The Same or Different; 
Kinds; Minds; Bodies; One Time; One Space; Subjects and 
Attributes; Causal Influences; The Fancied; The Real. 

2 Md., p. 170. ' lUd., pp. 169-70. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 357 

categories unimaginable by us to-day would have 
'proved on the whole as serviceable for handling 
our experiences as those which we actually itseJ^ ^ 

The net outcome of the pragmatic doctrine is 
that " to an imascertainable extent our truths are 
man-made products." ^ The " trail of the human 
serpent," as Professor James himself declares, " is 
thus over everything." ^ ^' The question What is 
the truth ? is no real question (being irrelevant 
to all conditions) . . . the whole notion of the 
truth is an abstraction from truths in the plural, 
a mere useful summarizing phrase like the Latin 
language, or the law." ^ " The true, to put it 
very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of 
our thinking, just as ' the right ' is only the ex- 
pedient in the way of our behaving." ^ 

With the dissolution of the right and the true 
into the expedient the accord of pragmatism with 
the spirit of contemporary literature becomes evi- 
dent. Into the lineage of both enters the presup- 
position that truth conceived as correspondence 
with eternal reality is .nonexistent, and this, for 

1 Pragmatism, p. 171. (Italics mine.) 

Professor Schiller seems to me rather more respectful to our 
actual categories than Professor James. He says: "I have 
faith that the process of experience that has brought us to our 
present standpoint has not been wholly error and delusion 
and may on the whole be trusted." — Humanism, Preface, 
p. xix. 2 Ibid., p. 242. 

3 Ibid., p. 64. * Ibid., p. 240. ^ /^^^.^ p. 222. 



358 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the excellent reason that there is no eternal reality 
with which to correspond. 

With the emergence of this presupposition into 
clear consciousness pragmatism becomes not only 
a method for testing the validity of ideas and a 
genetic theory of truth, but also a hypothesis with 
regard to the structure of the universe. Briefly 
stated this hypothesis is that the universe is still 
in the process of making; that it has alternative 
possibilities, and that its future is not assured. It 
has no will of its own. Tennyson's confession 
" Our wills are ours to make them thine " has no 
longer any meaning. As we substitute truths in 
the plural for " Truth with a big T and in the 
singular," so we must substitute wills in the plu- 
ral for one eternal and absolute will. As has 
been already said pragmatism " postpones dog- 
matic answer with regard to the subject of re- 
ligion,'' because it is not yet certainly known 
'^ which type of religion will work best in the long 
run," ^ but the sympathies of pragmatists are 
with " the view that the universe is ultimately a 
joint-stock affair." ^ " The only obvious escape 
from paradox," writes Professor James, " is to cut 
loose from the monistic assumption altogether and 
to allow the world to have existed from its origin 
in pluralistic form as an aggregate or collection 

^ Pragmatism, p. 300. 

2 Humanism, F. C. S. Schiller, M.A., Preface, p. xx. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 359 

of higher and lower things and principles rather 
than an absolutely unitary fact." ^ 

The salvation of this adventurous universe is 
uncertain. It has, however, ^' a fighting chance " 
of safety.^ The condition of its safety is that 
'^ each several agent does its own ^ level best' . . . 
It is a social scheme of cooperative work genu- 
inely to be done." ^ Pessimism holds that the sal- 
vation of the world is impossible. Optimism de- 
clares it inevitable. Pragmatism rejects both op- 
timism and pessimism in favor of meliorism or 
the doctrine that salvation is possible, but not as- 
sured.* 

As salvation is possible but not certain so (in 
the opinion of Professor James) it is partial.^ 
He gives up " the claim of total reconciliation." ^ 
I can believe, he writes, " in the ideal as an ulti- 
mate, not as an origin, and as an extract not the 
w^hole. When the cup is poured off, the dregs are 
left behind forever, but the possibility of what is 
poured off is sweet enough to accept." ^ '' The 
way of escape from evil," according to his doc- 
trine, '^ is hy dropping it out altogether, throwing 



» The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 132. 
^ Pragmatism, p. 292. 

^ Ibid., p. 290. * Ibid., p. 285. 

6 He says that on this subject he cannot speak ofl&cially as 
a pragmatist. 

6 Pragmatism, p. 296. 



360 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

it overboard and getting beyond it, helping to 
make a universe that shall forget its very place 
and name.^^ ^ 

Pragmatism sounds a clarion call. Its universe 
with a fighting chance stirs the blood and makes 
the nerves tingle. It restores to man the dignity 
of freedom. The pragmatist has awakened from 
the nightmare of naturalism. He knows that 
^^ life is not the mere rattling off of a chain that 
was forged innumerable ages ago." ^ He believes 
that in " our voluntary life things are really being 
decided from moment to moment " ; he is con- 
vinced that these decisions have momentous con- 
sequences and therefore once again " life and his- 
tory tingle with tragic zest." ^ But has he spoken 
the solvent word ? Is his world of plural truths, 
plural wills, and plural possibilities the world in 
which we actually live ? I think not. 

ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND MODERN PHILOSOPHIES 

We have all heard that history is philosophy 
teaching by example. It may be claimed that it is 
likewise psychology teaching by example. As we 
study it we learn how the human mind develops. 
One of its surest revelations is that this develop- 

> Pragmatism, p. 297. Author's italics. 

2 Briefer Psychology, William James, p. 238. 

3 Ibid., pp. 237, 238. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 361 

ment is vortical in form and that thought is per- 
petually tracing, ascending, and widening circles, 
which correspond with the lower and smaller cir- 
cles of earlier periods. 

It has been recognized by many thoughtful stu- 
dents of contemporary science that its solution of 
the universe as the ephemeral manifestation of a 
single, persistent, and unknowable force is closely 
akin to the religious doctrines of farther Asia. 
This kinship is more clearly defined in the state- 
ment that conclusions reached by Asia through 
the intuitions of feeling and imagination are re- 
afiirmed by science upon the plane of the conscious 
understanding. A single passage from the Bhaga- 
vad Gita or Sacred Lay will suggest the character- 
istic tenets of the great Oriental Creed: 



The high-minded, inclining to the nature of the 
gods, worship me with their hearts turned to no other 
object, knowing me to be the imperishable principle 
of all things. There exists no other thing superior 
to me. On me is all the universe suspended as pearls 
on a string. I am the savor in the waters, and the 
luminous principle in the moon and sun, the mystic 
syllable, Om in all the Vedas, the sound in the ether, 
the masculine essence in man, the sweet smell in the 
earth, and I am the brightness in the flame, the vital- 
ity in all beings, and the power of mortification in 
ascetics. ... I am the eternal seed of all things that 
exist. I am the intellect of those beings which pos- 
sess intellect, the strength of the strong. ... I am 



362 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

the lust in all beings which is prevented hy no law. 
And know that all dispositions whether good, bad-, or 
indifferent proceed also from me/ 

It is impossible to mistake the sense of this pas- 
sage. Brahma is the characteristic quality in each 
thing. He has no distinctive quality of his own. 
In him are obliterated not only all physical, but 
all moral distinctions. He is ascetic mortification, 
and he is lust. All dispositions whether good, bad, 
or indifferent proceed from him. As we learn 
from another passage of the same lay, " He is the 
same to all beings and has neither foes nor 
friends." " Even if one who has led a very bad 
life worships me,'' says Brahma (or Vishnu), ^' he 
must be considered a good man for he has judged 
aright." 

It is characteristic of this ancient faith that it 
seeks deliverance not through moral action but 
through the extinction of thought. The devotee 
we are told practises devotion in the following 
way : " Holding his body, head, and neck all even 
and immovable, firmly seated regarding only the 
tip of his nose and not looking around in different 
directions, the devotee should remain quiet with 
passionless soul. Thus he attains the supreme 
extinction and is conjoined with Brahma." ^ 

» Bhagavad Glta, p. 52. Translated by J. Cockburn 
Thomson. (Italics mine.) Vishnu speaks in this quotation 
as Supreme Being identical with Brahma. ^ Ibid., p. 45. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 363 

The three characteristic tenets of the great ori- 
ental creed are one unity; indifference to moral 
distinctions; and the goal of extinction. The re- 
vival of these three tenets in the creed of natural- 
ism is too patent to require illustration. All stu- 
dents of the scientific thought so popular within 
the past fifty years are familiar with Herbert 
Spencer's many formulations of the doctrine of a 
single persistent force as the final cause and ex- 
planation of the world. " The one fact," he tells 
us, " which underlies all experience as its neces- 
sary presupposition is a single great force." This 
force is unknowable. It is in all things, but re- 
vealed by none : It " wells up in man under the 
form of consciousness," but this form is as ephem- 
eral as any of its other forms. Like old Proteus 
it takes on all shapes but abides in none. Hu- 
manity is only one of its vanishing embodiments. 
Therefore conscious individuality is an accident. 
Free will is an absurd illusion. Every human 
action was predetermined before our solar system 
w^as born. All life is misery and the one hope of 
man is extinction of the will to live. The ablest 
statement of this naturalistic creed is that of 
which Goethe makes Mephistopheles the exponent. 

Believe me who for many a thousand year 
The same tough meat have chewed and tested, 
That from the cradle to the bier 
No man the ancient leaven has digested. 



364 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

Trust one of us, this whole supernal 

Is made but for a God's delight ! 

He dwells in splendor single and eternal, 

But us, he thrusts in darkness out of sight, 

And you he dowers with day and night. 

It has been necessary to renew our appreciation 
of the old thought which the world has so recently 
revived and outgrown in order to understand the 
great change which is even now going on imme- 
diately around us. For, precisely as naturalism 
revived the intuitions of Brahmanism and Bud- 
dhism upon the plane of the understanding, so con- 
temporary pragmatism is reaffirming the charac- 
teristic tenets of the religion variously known as 
Dualism, Mazdaism, or Zoroastrianism. 

The most characteristic fact about this ancient 
religion is its renunciation of unity and its setting 
up of distinction. This distinction seized origi- 
nally as an antithesis of light and darkness de- 
velops gradually into an antithesis of good and 
evil. Two rival powers, Ahura Mazda and Angra 
Mainyu, are at work in the world, and each man 
must choose with which one of them he will con- 
spire. A few passages from the Zend-Avesta will 
show how the world is parceled out between them : 

The first of the good lands and countries which I, 
Ahura Mazda, created, was the Airyana Vaego by the 
good river Daitya. 

Thereupon came Angra Mainyu, who is all death, 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 365 

and he counter-created by his witchcraft the serpent 
in the river, and winter a work of the Daevas. 

The second of the good lands and countries which 
I, Ahura Mazda, created, was the plains in Sughdha. 

Thereupon came Angra Mainyu, who is all death, 
and he counter-created by his witchcraft the fly 
Skaitya, which brings death to the cattle. 

The third of the good lands which I, Ahura Mazda, 
created, was the strong holy Mouru. 

Thereupon came Angra Mainyu, who is all death, 
and counter-created by his witchcraft sinful lusts/ 

So the enumeration proceeds through many 
creations of Ahura Mazda and counter-creations 
of Angra Mainyu. Ahura makes a beautiful land 
which Angra curses with '^ stained mosquitoes." 
Another good land is brought forth and followed 
by counter-creation of the sin of pride. A num- 
ber of good lands are created and instantly suc- 
ceeded by counter-creations of excessive heat, 
witchcraft, unbelief, and different dreaded ill- 
nesses. 

1^0 alert mind can ponder these creations and 
counter-creations without becoming aware of two 
facts. The human mind had become aroused to 
distinctions in both the material and .spiritual 
worlds. By some of these distinctions it was at- 
tracted, by others it was repelled. The men who 
created the Zend religion did not like winter, flies, 

» Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv, pp. 4-6. 



366 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

stained mosquitoes, witchcraft, pride, lust, unbe- 
lief, or oppression by foreign rulers. So they 
lumped all these undesirable things together and 
branded them as creations of Angra Mainyu who 
was all death. 

The consciousness out of which the Zend-Avesta 
sprang has its crudest analogue in such questions 
as ^' Why did God make flies and mosquitoes ? '' 
A more dignified example of this mental attitude 
is given in the following poem of William Blake : 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright 

In the forests of the night, 

What immortal hand or eye 

Could frame thy fearful symmetiyi 

* * * * * 

In what distant deeps or skies 
Burns the fire of thine eyes. 
On what wings dare he aspire ? 
What the hand dare seize the fire? 

* * -x- -x- * 

What the hammer? What the chain? 
In what furnace was thy brain? 
What the anvil? What dread grasp 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 

* * * * * 

When the stars threw down their spears 
And watered heaven with their tears 
Did He smile His work to see? 
Did He who made the lamb make thee? 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 367 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright 
In the forests of the night. 
What immortal hand or eye 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 

As I have said this poem suggests the state of 
mind out of which sprang the religion of the Zend- 
Avesta. Men had become so keenly aware of the 
dark side of life that they could no longer believe 
in a single power as the source of all things. This 
dark side of life includes the baffling phenomena 
of nature, the problems of pain and sin in their 
relation to the individual, and the many seeming 
tragedies of human history. The creators of the 
Zend religion faced the darkness of life with 
quickened intelligence and quickened courage, and 
out of dauntless hearts answered the challenge of 
evil with the assertion that they would fight it. 
This is their great deed. They will not sit down, 
look at the end of their noses and say Om. They 
will not seek peace in extinction. Granted that 
Ahura Mazda is not all powerful. He is, never- 
theless, locked in deadly combat with Angra 
Mainyu. They incline to the belief that he will 
be victorious. But whether victory or defeat 
await him, they will help him in his fight. 

Like its religious prototype pragmatism has 
arisen out of an honest and resolute grapple with 
the enigma of evil. The revelations of science 
shroud this enigma in deeper mystery. The phi- 



368 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

losophy of naturalism conspicuously fails to ex- 
plain it. Idealism seems to make the absolute 
responsible for it and such a solution repels the 
moral consciousness. Better no Creator than an 
immoral Creator. Better a plural and insecure 
universe with a " fighting chance " for getting rid 
of evil than a universe wherein the existence of 
evil is permitted because " it enriches the life of 
the absolute first principle." 

The deliverances of both Professor James and 
Professor Schiller make evident the fact that they 
understand this immoral doctrine of evil to be 
characteristic of the philosophy of absolute ideal- 
ism. " Under the auspices of the Hegelizing 
idealists/' writes Professor Schiller, ^^ Philosophy 
has uplifted herself once more to a metaphysical 
contemplation of the absolute, of the unique 
whole in which all things are included and trans- 
cended. Now, whether this conception has any 
value for metaphysics is a moot point on which 
I have elsewhere expressed a decided opinion ; but 
there can hardly be a pretense of denying that it 
is the death of morals. For the ideal of the abso- 
lute whole cannot be rendered compatible with 
the antithetical valuations which form the vital 
atmosphere of human agents. They are partial 
appreciations which vanish from the standpoint 
of the whole. Without the distinctions of good 
and evil, right and wrong, pleasure and pain, 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 369 

self and other, then and now, progress and decay, 
human life would be dissolved into the phantom 
pla;;^ of an unmeaning mirage. But in the ab- 
solute all moral distinctions must, like all others, 
be swallowed up and disappear.^ In even more 
emphatic protest Professor James writes as fol- 
lows: 

It is perfectly safe to say now that if the Hegelian 
gnosticism which has begun to show itself here and 
in Great Britain were to become a popular philosophy, 
as it once was in Germany, it would certainly develop 
its left wing here as there and produce a reaction of 
disgust. Already I have heard a graduate of this very 
school express in the pulpit his willingness to sin like 
David, if only he might repent like David. You may 
tell me he was only sowing his wild, or rather his 
tame oats, and perhaps he was. But the point is that 
in the subjectivistic or gnostical philosophy oat-sow- 
ing, wild or tame, becomes a systematic necessity and 
the chief function of life. After the pure and classic 
truths, the exciting and rancid ones must be expe- 
rienced; and if the stupid virtues of the philistine 
herd do not then come in and save society from the 
influence of the children of light, a sort of inward 
putrefaction becomes its inevitable doom.* 

Evidently both the authors quoted sincerely 
believe that the absolute of Hegelian idealism is 

1 Humanism, F. C. S. Schiller, M.A., pp. 2 and 3. (Italics 
mine and the capitals of the original mostly changed to 
" lower case " letters.) 

2 The Will to Believe, by William James, pp. 171, 172. 

25 



370 EDUCATION A.L ISSUES 

a kind of Brahma in whom all distinctions even 
those of good and evil are transcended, and they 
rightly prefer Ahnra Mazda and his age-long con- 
flict with Angra Mainyu. Their interpretation 
of absolute idealism seems strange to one who, like 
myself, has learned from its study that " the whole 
search of philosophy is for a distinction that will 
hold,'' ^ and who seems to herself to have found 
that abiding distinction in an eternal personal- 
ity. I have attempted to state as briefly as pos- 
sible the tenets of naturalism and pragmatism. 
I shall now endeavor to present with equal brev- 
ity the insights of absokite idealism as I under- 
stand them. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 

The fundamental presupposition of this phi- 
losophy is that the final explanation of the uni- 
verse must be sought in a completely realized 
self-consciousness. It seems to me a significant 
fact that underlying every practical issue dis- 
cussed in this book has been some theory of 
self-consciousness which attacked either its pri- 
ority, its value, or its actual existence. It will be 
remembered that Herbart defined the Ego as ^' a 
result of presentations which unite and interpene- 
trate one another." For Herbart, therefore, " the 

* Dr. Harris. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 371 

self is a composite/^ and " consciousness not the 
condition, but rather the resultant of ideas which 
are primarily forces." ^ By the leader of that 
child-study movement whose educational outcome 
was the free-play programme, consciousness was 
hypothetically conceived as " a wart raised by the 
sting of sin," " a product of alienation," or " a 
remedial process." The greatest interpreter of 
pragmatism is persuaded " that breath moving 
outward between the glottis and the nostrils " is 
^' the essence out of which philosophers have con- 
structed the entity known as consciousness. That 
entity," he adds, " is fictitious while thoughts in 
the concrete are fully real." - 

Denying the fundamental postulate of idealism 
the philosophies referred to are naturally hostile 
to a method of education which is intrinsically re- 
lated to the idealistic view of the world. In this 
intellectual hostility lies the final explanation of 
the several attempts made to revolutionize the 
kindergarten. Conversely the final justification of 
the traditional kindergarten is impossible unless 
the idealistic philosophy be the most adequate state- 
ment of truth thus far achieved by human reason. 

1 The Educational Theories of Herbart and Froebel, by 
John Angus MacVannel, p. 69. 

2 Does Consciousness Exist? Prof. William James, Journal 
of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Septem- 
ber, 1904, p. 491. 



372 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

It must be granted that many interpreters of 
idealism have aided to bring their fundamental 
postulate into disrepute by assuming that the per- 
fect self-consciousness " includes all individual 
selves.'' As has recently been pointed out by a 
thoughtful writer such inclusion of individual 
selves in a common consciousness ^' is one instance 
of that fertile source of philosophical error — the 
misapplication of spatial metaphors." ^' Minds 
are not Chinese boxes which can be put inside one 
another." ^ ..." To talk of one self-conscious 
being therefore as including or containing in him- 
self or being identical with other selves is to use 
language which is wholly meaningless and self- 
contradictory, for the essence of being a self is 
to distinguish one's self from other selves." - In 
my judgment it is in virtue of the fact that so 
many idealists have been betrayed by this " spa- 
tial metaphor " that their explanations justify 
the strictures of Professor James and Professor 
Schiller. 

" Mind is communicable but not divisible." It 
cannot be described as having " parts " or being 
made up of " elements." The human soul is not 
a " part " of God. It is not an " element " in 
God. It is not an " aspect " of God. It is not a 
" fragment " of the self-consciousness of the Ab- 

» H. Rashdall, Personal Idealism, p. 388. 
2 Ibid., p. 388. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 373 

solute. What then is it and how is it related to 
its creative source ? The answer to this question 
which I accept is that each human soul is a du- 
plicate of the self-determining form of the divine 
self -consciousness. 

The distinctive characteristic of self-conscious- 
ness is subject-objectivity. The self makes itself 
its own object. In this act of self-objectification 
intellect and will are conjoined. The self objecti- 
fies itself. This is an act of will. It recognizes 
itself in its object. This is an act of intellect. 
The self-objectification and self -recognition are 
not two acts but one act having two phases or 
aspects. 

When we attempt to explain to ourselves this 
self -objectifying act, we realize that it involves 
not only the objectification of determinations but 
the objectification of self -determining energy. If 
the thoughts of God are deeds, then nature is the 
drama of those deeds, and with the arrival of 
nature at living beings the process of self-object- 
ification reaches that dramatic moment when it 
objectifies its own free self-making energy. 
Thenceforward, free energies must make them- 
selves.^ 

Without pausing to consider the bearing of this 
insight upon the nature of living, but non-human 

1 The attentive reader will soon realize that I am stating a 
theory of creation which must be amended. 



374 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

beings let us ask what it means as related to the 
nature and destiny of man and what light it casts 
upon the character of God. 

The first insight which suggests itself is that 
the objectification of the divine self -determining 
creates noumenal and not merely phenomenal 
being. If God gave men only a seeming power of 
self-determination He would not really objectify 
Himself; therefore He could not know Himself, 
and lacking self-knowledge would not be the ab- 
solute self-consciousness wdiich is the final postu- 
late of idealism. In other words, unless man is 
really self-determining and therefore free and 
responsible God cannot be Eternal Personality. 
The freedom and moral responsibility of each 
individual soul are therefore guaranteed by the 
realized self-consciousness of the divine first prin- 
ciple. 

As the final postulate of idealism guarantees 
the freedom of man, so it establishes the goodness 
of God and supplies an absolute criterion for mo- 
rality. The condition of an absolute self-con- 
sciousness is that it shall make itself objective. It 
cannot do this without conferring its own freedom 
and independence upon its object. It gives, there- 
fore, of its best. It gives itself. Giving itself it 
reveals itself as love. For what is love if not the 
giving of itself to the object loved ? A self -objec- 
tifying first principle is therefore an altruistic 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 375 

first principle. '^ ^ God creates because He has no 
envy.' The fundamental principle of morality is 
goodness in the sense of grace or loving kindness. 
Its nearest illustration is mother-love, which en- 
dures the caprices and misdeeds of infancy and 
saves it from destruction through much pain and 
trouble. Goodness presupposes the giving of real 
being to the creature ; not a phenomenal being but 
a noumenal being, and such noumenal being is 
self-activity, freedom, independence, responsibil- 
ity, both intellect and will.'' ^ 

Thus far we have considered only one aspect 
of self-objectifying activity. The consideration 
of this aspect seems to have yielded an altruistic 
God and a free man.^ We must now consider its 
second aspect. Having objectified himself God 
recognizes Himself in His object. Can He so rec- 
ognize Himself in nature and in man ? Can the 
perfect recognize himself in the imperfect? Can 
the Infinite and Absolute Being recognize Himself 
in finite and developing beings ? If not, may we 
have been mistaken in our identification of the 
act of divine self-objectification with the process 
of nature and its culmination in man ? 

Pondering more closely our fundamental pre- 
supposition that a perfect self-consciousness ob- 
jectifies and recognizes itself we become aware 

' Hegel's Voyage of Discovery, by W. T. Harris. 

2 Here begins the amendment of my original statement. 



376 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

that its object cannot be less perfect than itself. 
To admit a process of evolution as the object of 
the divine self-consciousness is to define a finite 
God who passes through stages of imperfect doing 
and knowing. To accept a finite God is to con- 
ceive a God who had a temporal beginning. The 
contrast between time and eternity is not quanti- 
tative but qualitative. The eternal must have 
realized all its potentialities — the temporal is 
always in process of realization. All temporal 
processes presuppose an eternally realized energy 
as their source. A temporal God is neither self- 
explanatory nor explanatory of the universe. The 
logical results of conceiving God as finite and tem- 
poral are atheism and acosmism. 

If, therefore, we accept the fundamental pos- 
tulate of idealism that the final explanation of 
the universe is a completely realized self-conscious- 
ness, we are impelled to the conclusion that the 
self-realization has been complete from eternity. 
The object of such a consciousness cannot he a 
process of becoming. It must be another con- 
sciousness in every respect equal to the first, hut 
differing from it in the fact that it has been eter- 
nally generated by the self-objectifying act} The 
fact that all idealists have not reached this con- 
clusion does not militate against its logical neces- 
sity. It merely suggests that the implications of 
» Amendment. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 377 

the idealistic pre-supposition have not been ade- 
quately apprehended. 

The results of this inadequate apprehension 
have been the philosophies of monism and plural- 
ism. Monism has tried to explain nature and 
human history as the process of the divine self- 
knowing. The result has been that it merged 
human individuality in the divine and thereby 
lost human freedom, responsibility, and immor- 
tality. Pluralism has insisted upon the separate- 
ness and independence of each individual self- 
consciousness. To justify its insight it has been 
driven either to make " Reality consist of eternal 
souls Avithout God," ^ or to accept a God who is 
not a creator but merely one member (though the 
greatest member) of a society of interconnected 
souls. The philosophy of pluralism is confronted 
with two enigmas. How can eternal souls be in 
a process of becoming ? How can the universe be 
whole and one if there is no absolute mind which 
wills and knows its w^holeness ? Pluralism makes 
an unsuccessful attempt to answer the former 
enigma by distinguishing between souls as " eter- 
nal realities " and the same souls as appearing in 
time. It seeks to get rid of the latter enigma by 
substituting a possible empirical unification of 
things for their rational unity.- 

1 Personal Idealism, p. 393. 

2 Pragmatism, p. 280. 



378 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

The division of idealists into the rival camps 
of monists and pluralists suggests the possibility 
of a synthesis which would give validity to the 
truths for which they respectively contend. It 
may be that the conception of an eternal self-con- 
sciousness objectifying and recognizing itself in a 
second self-consciousness which is in every respect 
its equal but differs from it in the fact that it was 
generated through this objectifying act, offers the 
point of departure for the synthesis required. 
Let us endeavor to approach this synthesis by ask- 
ing ourselves wherein the second self -consciousness 
above described will differ from the first, and 
since self-consciousness and personality are syn- 
onymous terms let us now drop the expression first 
and second self-consciousness, in favor of the ex- 
pression first and second person. Between the 
first and second persons (as between all true per- 
sons) there is both identity and difference. They 
are alike in that both are eternally realized self- 
objectifying minds. They differ in the fact that 
the self -objectifying consciousness of the first is 
that of an aboriginal generator, while the self- 
objectifying consciousness of the second is that of 
a generator who has been himself eternally gen- 
erated. He is possessed of the same perfection as 
the eternal generator and since to know, is to cause 
to he, his knowledge of his perfect personality is 
objectified as a third perfect person. He knows 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 379 

himself, however, not only as eternally perfect but 
as eternally generated, and this knowledge makes 
objective his owti derivation as a process ascend- 
ing from nothingness toward identification with 
the first perfect person. This objectified process 
is the evolutionary ascent of nature and man. 
It is " a becoming from that which is not to that 
which is and is perfect." ^ Hence on the one hand 
it contains eternally all degrees of imperfection 
and on the other it is a process wherein imperfec- 
tion is forever being eliminated. 

The most difficult act of thought in its attempt 
to explore the implications of a completely real- 
ized self-consciousness is to understand how the 
self -objectifying act closes with the eternal pro- 
cession and its culmination in a third perfect 
person. The question arises, " Must not this 
third person also objectify himself and thus 
cause a fourth who in turn originates a fifth and 
so on in infinite progression ? " ^ The answer 
to this question is that such an infinite progres- 
sion is superfluous because the third person does 
forever objectify his eternally complete processio 
in an actual process of becoming and his eter- 
nally realized personality in the eternally re- 
newed mutual recognition of the first and second 
persons. 

J Hegel's Logic, by W, T, Harris, p. 379. 
2 Ibid., p. 13. 



380 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

If we have correctly apprehended the implica- 
tions of a completely realized self -consciousness, 
they would seem to point inexorably to the conclu- 
sion that perfect personality must be triune. 
Each of these triune persons conspires in the sin- 
gle act of self-objectification through which their 
reciprocal relationship is eternally defined. The 
First Person '^ in knowing Himself generates the 
Second from all eternity. The Second in knowing 
His derivation recognizes His origin in the know- 
ing of the First, feut the First, too, recognizes the 
recognition of the Second,'' ^ and this mutual rec- 
ognition is objectified in a process of evolution 
ascending from utter nothingness to perfect per- 
sonality. The evolutionary process must be care- 
fully distinguished from the Third Perfect Per- 
son, in whom on the one hand it has eternally 
completed itself and through whose conspiring 
activity it is on the other hand forever renewed. 
" This evolutionary process," says Dr. Harris, 
" has unique relations to each of the Divine Per- 
sons. To the First it is the recognition of His 
own process of generating through goodness or 
altruistic action; to the Second it is the recogni- 
tion of another's goodness and altruism — namely, 
that of the First ; to the Third it is a recognition 



» Hegel's Logic, p. 379. This is the final amendment of my 
original statement. 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 381 

of His o^vn double procession through the altru- 
ism of the First and Second." ^ 

Our analysis of the implications of a com- 
pletely realized self-consciousness has led to con- 
clusions in substantial agreement with the theol- 
ogy of the Christian Church. These conclusions, 
however, are not offered as dogmas to be accepted 
upon authority, but as insights to be actively 
reproduced by the individual thinker. Moreover, 
they add to Christian theology a more precise 
conception of the Holy Spirit and of His relation- 
ship to the process of creation, to the individual 
human soul, and to the church universal. 

In order that we may actively assimilate these 
more precise conceptions, we must make a clear 
distinction between the Holy Spirit and that con- 
tinuous creation of worlds in time and space 
which is His eternally renewed procession. This 
procession in turn must be conceived as an eternal 
return of the imperfect toward the perfect. It 
involves an ascent of being from chaos through 
matter, motion, star dust, revolving spheres, or- 
ganic life and human institutions, to the perfect 
institution or cosmic community which (like the 
human institutions w^herein it is imperfectly mir- 
rored) " collects power from each of the members 
and endows each with the power of all." - This 

1 Hegel's Logic, W. T. Harris, pp. 379, 380. 

2 Ibid., p. 14. 



382 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

cosmic community has existed from all eternity, 
and since it is necessarily postulated through the 
implications of a realized self-consciousness, it 
harmonizes the eternal society upon which plural- 
ism insists with the noetic unity for which monism 
contends. 

It will be remembered that the conclusions to 
which we have been impelled had their point of 
departure in the contradiction which arose from 
our attempt to explain man as the objectified 
thought of a monistic God. This contradiction 
inheres in most interpretations of idealism, and, 
as Dr. Harris has pointed out, its source is HegeFs 
identification of creation with the Logos or Second 
Divine Person.^ Through this identification fini- 

1 "I have often before alluded to this distinction of the 
Processio from the Second Divine Person as the important 
thing neglected by Hegel, a neglect that in some measure 
justifies the censure of pantheism that has been so freely cast 
upon him. It is not, however, with Hegel precisely as the 
charge has made it to be. Hegel does not in any wise fail in 
the proper characterization of the Third Person, nor in the 
doctrine of the invisible church and the 'Communion of 
Saints.' Freedom and immortality in the most concrete sense 
are held by Hegel. The defect pertains to the conception of 
the nature of the Second Person. The Processio is taken for 
the Logos. Hence there is an implication, that the First in 
knowing himself perceives in himself finitude originating and 
passing over into perfection. Recognizing this in himself, he 
at the same time creates it; for his knowing is creating. 
' In God knowing and willing are one. ' But such recognition of 
the origin of finitude in himself implies a consciousness of a 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 383 

tude is thrust without warrant into the perfect 
consciousness which idealism presupposes. With 
this thrust, therefore, idealism slays itself. There- 
after, stating its theory as ^^ the positive inclu- 
sion of all finite facts in the unity of the su- 
preme consciousness of the absolute," it virtually 
makes God the author of sin and justifies the 
valiant attack of Professor James against a di- 
vine being who is responsible for the Brockton 
murderer. ^ 

Do we escape this dilemma when we conceive 
creation as arising through the contemplation by 
the Logos of His own derivation ? It seems to me 
that we do. For the self -objectifying act through 
which He creates all living beings involves recog- 
nition of His own self -determining energy and 
therefore of their freedom. The self-objectifying 
act through which He creates man involves recog- 
nition not only of self-determining energy but of 
self-determining energy which has achieved the 
final form of self-consciousness, and . in which 
therefore the generic ideal can be realized in the 
individual. Even plants and animals are self- 
creative energies, and their many genera and 



derivation, a begottenness, and this shows at once that Hegel 
has conceived the First as the Second. He has attributed 
to the Father the consciousness that belongs to the Logos. " 
—Hegel's Logic, W. T. Harris, p. 381. 

» See The Will to Believe, William James, pp. 160, 161, 177. 



384 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

species arise through the varying forms in which 
they adapt themselves to environment and modify 
environment to themselves. Man is not only a 
self -creative being but a responsible being, because 
in virtue of his form of self-consciousness he can 
discriminate between his partial, accidental, and 
temporary self, and his total, essential, and im- 
mortal self. According to our doctrine, therefore, 
God is not the Creator of sin. He creates free 
beings and they create their own sin. 

We have seen that the giving of real freedom 
to the creature implies goodness in the Creator. 
Goodness is altruism or love which gives itself. 
This real freedom conferred upon the creature by 
divine altruism can only be recognized by holding 
him (man) responsible for his deeds. Such recog- 
nition of responsibility involves man's right to the 
consequences of his own actions. Being free, man 
is amenable to justice, whose principle is the re- 
turn of the deed upon the doer. To deny him 
this return is to mock him with the semblance of 
freedom. Hence, as Christian intuition has deeply 
discerned, hell is a final tribute of respect from 
the Creator to the creature made in His own im- 
age. As a tribute to freedom, however, hell im- 
plies the immortal persistence of freedom and 
therefore of the possibility of amendment. Man 
cannot justly receive the return of his deed unless 
he is responsible for it. He cannot be responsible 



THREE WORLD VIEWS 385 

unless he is free and capable of amendment. 
Slionld he lose his freedom even through his own 
sin he conld no longer be punished for sinning. 
Implicit in the doctrine of hell is the insight 
which triumphs over hell. Man may stay in hell 
forever if he so choose.-^ He may always es- 
cape from hell if he will. Being free, he will 
not choose forever to contradict his freedom. 
The resources of infinite love will be taxed to 
the utmost to illuminate his intelligence and 
influence his recalcitrant will. The only im- 
possibility is that he should cease to be, for his 
immortal existence is bound up with that eter- 
nal act in w^hich divine knowing and willing 
are one. 

Perfect justice in the sense of a complete return 
of the deed upon the doer can only be exercised 
toward a perfect being. To exercise it toward im- 
perfect beings would make an evolutionary world- 
order impossible. Since this evolutionary world- 
order is necessarily presupposed by the self -object- 
ifying act through which the Logos makes actual 
His own timeless derivation, goodness, or altruism, 
must be recognized as the fundamental principle 
of the divine character and justice be given valid- 
ity only in so far as it does not collide with, but 
on the contrary furthers the aim of goodness. Out 

1 W. T. Harris, Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Comme- 
dia, second edition, p. 19. 
26 



386 EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 

of reciprocal relationship between the goodness 
that gives freedom and the justice or righteous- 
ness which respect for freedom demands arises 
that providential process through which ^' God 
educates the human soul.'' 



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